The little baby mice
Live underneath the floor.
In a dark, dark house
That has no hall door.
No hall door?
Then how do they get in?
They squeeze through a little hole.
They’re very, very thin.
No hall door?
Then how do they get out?
Out through the same hole
When pussy’s not about.
And the little baby mice
Have a horrid, horrid time.
With no mud for mud pies
And no trees to climb.
They don’t get any money
They can’t slide down the stairs,
And they never, never, never, NEVER
Say their prayers.
Archive | poetry
The Clocks – John D. Sheridan
Granny Knows – John D. Sheridan
When I want to ask a question
I nearly always to go
To my Granny; for there’s not a thing
Granny doesn’t know.
When Mother’s very busy
She bids me run and play,
And when my Dad is tired
I know I’m in the way;
But I always get an answer from my Granny.
I asked her why the stars
Come only in the night,
And she said that, in the evening,
When the sun turns off his light,
They draw a big big curtain
Over all the sky,
Till you only see the black,
And you don’t see any blue-
Well, the stars are little holes
Where the sky shines through.
Spring Song – John D. Sheridan
There is going to be a dance,
I can feel it in the air-
What kind of frock will the daffodil wear?
Gold for the sun and green for the clover;
Spring is on the way
And the winter’s nearly over.
A soft little wind
Out behind the hill
Is practising tunes
For the shy daffodil.
He daren’t start yet
To play with all his might;
He daren’t start yet,
For the time isn’t right;
He daren’t start yet,
For the frocks aren’t made,
And the fairy needles flash
In the green forest glade.
Green thread, gold thread, laughing all together-
Heigh for the dance and the bright spring weather.
The Priestin’ of Father John – John D. Sheridan
They’ll be priestin’ him the morra –
Troth it’s a quare world too!
For I min’ the rascal that he was,
And the things he used to do.
Many’s a time I chased him
When the strawberries were ripe
Though I own I never caught him –
He was faster nor a snipe.
He hit me wi’ a snowball once,
And that same very hand
Will be blessin’ me the morra –
Troth it’s hard to understand.
Long Richard from Kircrubbin,
Who a sort of far-out frien’,
Is struttin’ round this fortnight back,
Just like a hatchin’ hen.
McAllister from Cargey,
Who’s no more to him nor me,
You’d think to hear the chat of him
He reared him on his knee.
Tom the Tailor’s nearly bet
From hurryin’ on new suits,
And there’s powerful heavy buyin’
On caps and yella boots.
The square is thick with buntin’ –
Man dear there’ll be a sight
When the late bus from Downpatrrick
Gets in the morra night.
Oul’ Canon Dan, God bless him,
Will be fussin’ fit to burst,
And the women batin’ other
To get the blessin’ first.
But, Canon or no Canon
And I’d say this till his face,
For all his bit o’ purple
He’ll take the second place.
Sure even if the Bishop came
Wi’ yon big mitre on
He wouldn’t get the welcome
That we’ll give to Father John.
The pains are at me constant now
I seldom cross the door –
But I’m crossin’ it the morra
If I never cross it more.
You can quit your scoldin’ , Julia
An’ sayin’ I’m not wise –
Sure the sight of him will ease me heart
An’ gladden me oul’ eyes
It won’t be easy bendin’,
An’ the oul’ knees will hurt
But I’ll get down there fornenst him
In all the mud and dirt.
And if I get the chance at all
I’ll whisper in his ear
(Och I’ll do it nice and quiet
so that no one else will hear) :
“If anything should happen me
before you go away,
it’s no one but yourself I want
to shrive me on the clay.
Th’ oul’ Canon mightn’t like it
For he’s still hale and strong,
And I’m sure if he anointed me
He wouldn’t do it wrong.
But I’d feel more contented
If the hand to bless me when I go
Was the hand that threw the snowball
Twenty years ago.
Old Mr Nogginson – John D. Sheridan
Old Mr Nogginson from Stirabout Lane
doesn’t like sunshine and doesn’t like rain
ice cream and lollipops he just can’t stand
and he sticks out his tongue at the Stirabout band
He hates little girls no matter how nice
He won’t have little boys at any price
But one thing he does like and that’s quite plain
he likes old Mr Nogginson from Stirabout Lane.
Each in His Inmost Heart – John D. Sheridan
We are so lonely – all of us –
Each in his inmost heart seven times prisoner;
Neither can leave nor ever entrance grant
To those we love and would have share our being.
They only stand without and try to grasp
The meaning of our signs – who cannot sign!
For who can know the full portent
Of those eternal things that echo chill
Within the cloistered spirit?
In that deep place there is a sanctuary,
A sacred shrine where no man ever comes,
A secret dwelling single-tenanted.
We are so lonely – all of us –
Each in his inmost heart seven times prisoner.
Pancake Day – John D. Sheridan
Someone’s making pancakes,
The griddle’s on the grate,
the bowl of batter’s beaten up,
so I am going to wait,
Until the work is over,
And there perhaps will be,
Among the brown and speckled ones,
A yellow one for me.
Joe’s No Saint – John D. Sheridan
Joe’s no saint,
And I ought to know
For I work at the bench alongside Joe.
He loses his temper just like another
– Days he’d bite the nose off his mother,
And when 1 call for a pint of plain
Joe’s not slow with ‘The same again.’
He gives an odd bob to the poor and needy
But you wouldn’t call him gospel-greed
– You know what I mean?
So if there’s enquiries after he’s dead
I won’t swear to no haloes around his head,
For I never seen none. When all’s said and done
I don’t suppose they give haloes out
To fellows who like their bottle of stout.
All the same, though,
I’m glad that I work alongside Joe.
For in the morning time I lie on
Long after Guinness’s whistle is gone
And scarcely have time for a cup of tea
– As for prayers,
Well between you and me
The prayers I say is no great load –
A Hail Mary, maybe, on Conyngham Road
– You know how it is?
The horn blows on the stroke of eight
And them that’s not in time is late;
You mightn’t get a bus for ages,
But if you clock late they dock your wages.
Joe, though,
He’s never late at all,
Though he lives at the far end of Upper Whitehall:
And I happen to know
(For the wife’s cousin lives in the very same row)
That he sets his alarm for half-past six,
Shaves, and goes through the whole bag of tricks
Just like a Sunday,
Gets seven Mass in Gaeltacht Park
And catches the half-seven bus in the dark.
In ways, too, he’s not as well off as me,
For he can’t go back home for a cup of tea –
Just slips a flask in his overcoat pocket
And swallows it down while he fills in his docket.
I do see him munching his bread and cheese
When I’m getting into my dungarees.
There isn’t a thing about him then
To mark him off from the rest of men
– At least, there’s nothing that I can see.
But there must be something that’s hid from me
For it’s not every eight-o’clock-man can say
That he goes to the altar every day.
Maybe now you know
Why I’m glad I work alongside Joe.
For though I’m a Confraternity man
And struggle along the best I can
I haven’t much time for chapel or praying,
And some of the prayers that Joe does be saying
Those dark mornings must come my way.
For if Joe there prays enough for three
Who has more right to a tilly than me?
When my time comes and they lay me out
I won’t have much praying to boast about:
I don’t do much harm, but I don’t do much good,
And my beads have an easier time than they should,
So when Saint Peter rattles his keys
And says ‘What’s your record, if you please?’
I’ll answer ‘When I was down below
I worked at a bench alongside Joe.’
Joe is no saint with a haloed ring,
But I often think he’s the next best thing,
And the bus that he catches at half-past seven
Is bound for O’Connell Bridge … and Heaven
– You know what I mean?
Kubla Khan – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I’ve written a couple of times here previously about what’s been described as the Xanadu Effect. Edward Tenner, author of the paper entitled “The Xanadu Effect“, has this to say about his view of the origins of the word Xanadu:
Xanadu, you may recall, was the palatial centerpiece of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, the brilliantly unfair film biography of William Randolph Hearst. Welles borrowed the name (if not the caves of ice) from Coleridge and modeled the place after Hearst’s own grand folly, La Cuesta Encantada, or “The Enchanted Hill,” a neo-Hispanic latifundium overlooking San Simeon Bay in central California.
It became famous as Hearst Castle. (Its owner preferred to call it a “ranch.”) On its 24,000 acres were a 354,000-gallon swimming pool, a private zoo and four main buildings with a total of 165 rooms. Along with other such extravagances, the estate helped send Hearst into trusteeship late in life. The cavernous halls of Welles’ gloomy cinematic Xanadu seemed to filmgoers – as the real, happier building must have appeared to many Hearst Corp. public investors – the very image of the pride that goes before a fall.
I’ll come back to the Orson Welles / Citizen Kane / William Randolph Hearst angle, but for the moment, this is the poem “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Kubla Khan
Or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw; It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.