Rhymed verse typed from memory

marcus

Yeats wrote an epitaph for the satirist Jonathan Swift, author of A Modest Proposal, and of Gulliver's Travels:

Swift has sailed into his rest:
Savage indignation, there,
cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
world-besotted traveler, he
served human liberty.

And he wrote another called Consolation:

Oh, but there is wisdom in what the sages said,
but stretch that body for a while, and lay down that head,
till I have told the sages where man is comforted.

How could passion run so deep, had I never thought
that the crime of being born blackens all our lot--
but where the crime's committed, the crime can be forgot.

LaurieAG

The first poem was called 'The plea of BeiBionn'.

The second poem was called 'The Green knights claim' and was based on my interpretation of the speech made by the Green knights severed head in 'Sir Gawain and the Green knight', an anonymous circa 1400 Welsh tract. The whole story could be summarised thus.

For all that amounts
make good honest accounts
lest ye could lose more than just lucky underpants!

Swift probably had a good right to be cynical. In Australia we can only watch as a yet to be collected 70 billion carbon tax slips down a 50 billion and counting budget black hole. And we're among the better prospects in the world today.

The eternal battle of the wits

Quarter wits see things from one perspective alone
while half wits view things in two color monochrome.
Three quarter wits perceive things in a third way
while few can see all four colours anyway.
Some entirely witless unfortunates
totally devoid of any original thoughtfullness
champion judgements made through three quarter wits cautiousness.
Witless advice from three quarter wits is unfit
when it recommends promoting quarter wits to wit.
Soon all the half wits appear very blue
only one shade of color when previously there were two.

LaurieAG

If you've ever wondered how the 'hanging chad' came about.

Holy Saint Chad of the irregular convocation,
required lifting for effective operation,
causing his superior much consternation.

marcus

There's a poem about creative thinking where there is an inner quiet in which a new solution or idea can emerge. Yeats wrote it, many of us must know it so well that it hardly needs repeating but I will recall it anyway.

That civilization may not sink,
its great battle lost,
quiet the dog, tether the pony
to a distant post.
Our master Caesar is in the tent
where the maps are spread,
his eyes fixed upon nothing,
a hand under his head:
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream,
his mind moves upon silence.

That the topless towers be burnt
and men recall that face,
move most gently if move you must
in this lonely place.
She think, part woman, three parts a child,
that nobody looks. Her feet
practice a tinker's shuffle
picked up in the street:
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream,
her mind moves upon silence.

That girls at puberty may find
the first Adam in their thoughts,
shut the door of the Pope's chapel,
keep those children out!
There on that scaffolding recines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than mice make,
his hand moves to and fro:
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream,
his mind moves upon silence.