Re: When Your Pop Is The Poet Laureate Of England...

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: : FRAUD!!!  YOU'RE NOT DOC MARY.  YOU ARE DOCTORATE M.

: : *it's frightening the way she pops up just when thoughts of her enter your head unbidden and half-formed.  She indeed be witch.
: : In league with the divil.  Burn her!  Burn her!!

: : Nice poem by the way.  

: : Gnome Dome

: During the Salem Witch Trials, one of the accused stated
: that "I be not a witch! I know not what a witch is!" 
: One of the judges (quite reasonably, I always thought)
: replied, "If ye do not know what a witch is, how do ye know
: ye are not one?" *cackle! cackle!* 

: Oh, go ahead and burn me why doncha! It will save me a
: trip to the Mohicanland Trade and Tanning Salon!

: Doc M

: : : ...this is what you get as a birthday present! Sometime a month
: : : or so ago, a few of you asked for the poem Cecil Day Lewis
: : : wrote upon the birth of his son, the Big D. I finally found
: : : in a large pile of books that I really must do something
: : : about one of these days. Here it is.

: : : The Newborn

: : : This mannikin who just now
: : : Broke prison and stepped free
: : : Into his own identity--
: : : Hand, foot, and brow
: : : A finished work, a breathing miniature--
: : : Was still, one night ago,
: : : A hope, a dread, a mere shape we
: : : Had lived with, only sure
: : : Something would grow
: : : Out of its coiled nine-month nonentity.

: : : Heaved hither on quickening throes,
: : : Tossed up on earth today,
: : : He sprawls limp as a castaway
: : : And nothing knows
: : : Beside the warm sleep of his origin.
: : : Soon lips and hands shall grope
: : : To try the world; this speck of clay
: : : And spirit shall begin
: : : To feed on hope,
: : : To learn how truth blows cold and loves betray.

: : : Now like a blank sheet
: : : His lineaments appear;
: : : But there's invisible writing here
: : : Which the day's heat 
: : : Will show; legends older than language, glum
: : : Histories of the tribe,
: : : Directives from his near and dear--
: : : Charms, curses, rules of thumb --
: : : He will transcribe
: : : In his own blood, to write upon an heir.

: : : This morsel of man I've held--
: : : What potency it has,
: : : Though strengthless still and naked as
: : : A nut unshelled!
: : : Every newborn seems a reviving seed
: : : Or metaphor of the divine.
: : : Charged with the huge, weak power of grass
: : : To split rock. How we need
: : : Any least sign
: : : That our stone age can break, our winter pass!

: : : Welcome to earth, my child!
: : : Joybells of blossom swing,
: : : Lambs and lovers have their fling,
: : : The streets run wild 
: : : With April airs and rumours of the sun.
: : : We time-worn folk renew
: : : Ourselves at your enchanted spring,
: : : As though mankind's begun
: : : Again in you.
: : : This is your birthday and our thanksgiving.

: : : From Pegasus and Other Poems by C. Day Lewis


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