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Hall and Knight (or `z + b + x = y + b + z’)

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on May 14, 2013 by telescoper

This poem will be a bit of a puzzle to younger readers, so I’ll just explain that Messrs Hall & Knight mentioned in the poem were the authors of a famous textbook about algebra “Elementary Algebra for Schools” that first went into publication in the 19th Century (1885, I think) and is still in press over a century later. It’s a classic book, fully meriting a celebration in verse, even if it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek!

When he was young his cousins used to say of Mr Knight:
‘This boy will write an algebra – or looks as if he might.’
And sure enough, when Mr Knight had grown to be a man,
He purchased pen and paper and an inkpot, and began.

But he very soon discovered that he couldn’t write at all,
And his heart was filled with yearnings for a certain Mr Hall;
Till, after many years of doubt, he sent his friend a card:
‘Have tried to write an Algebra, but find it very hard.’

Now Mr Hall himself had tried to write a book for schools,
But suffered from a handicap: he didn’t know the rules.
So when he heard from Mr Knight and understood his gist,
He answered him by telegram: ‘Delighted to assist.’

So Mr Hall and Mr Knight they took a house together,
And they worked away at algebra in any kind of weather,
Determined not to give up until they had evolved
A problem so constructed that it never could be solved.

‘How hard it is’, said Mr Knight, ‘to hide the fact from youth
That x and y are equal: it is such an obvious truth!’
‘It is’, said Mr Hall, ‘but if we gave a b to each,
We’d put the problem well beyond our little victims’ reach.

‘Or are you anxious, Mr Knight, lest any boy should see
The utter superfluity of this repeated b?’
‘I scarcely fear it’, he replied, and scratched this grizzled head,
‘But perhaps it would be safer if to b we added z.’

‘A brilliant stroke!’, said Hall, and added z to either side;
Then looked at his accomplice with a flush of happy pride.
And Knight, he winked at Hall (a very pardonable lapse).
And they printed off the Algebra and sold it to the chaps.

by E. V. Rieu (1887-1972)

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On His Blindness

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , on May 11, 2013 by telescoper

As I often do when I’m at a bit of a loose end, I just picked up a book of poems and dived in at random, which took me straight to the following sonnet by John Milton. I therefore stumbled upon a phrase “(“they also serve who only stand and wait”) which is is such common usage that I had never really thought about where it might have come from. Anyway, this is as nearly perfect an example of a Petrarchean (or Italian) sonnet as you could wish for, although the meaning is often been misinterpreted simply as an encouragement to be passive. Seen in its proper context, it seems to me that what Milton is saying is more like “Don’t be frustrated by what you can’t do, because God also knows your limitations, just do whatever you can – even if it’s not much”. As far as I know the poem is undated, but was presumably written after 1644 when Milton began to lose his eyesight. It could even be as late as 1655 by which time he was completely blind.

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

by John Milton (1608-1674)

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Down with Fanatics!

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on April 22, 2013 by telescoper

If I had my way with violent men
I’d simmer them in oil,
I’d fill a pot with bitumen
And bring them to the boil.
I execrate the terrorist
And those who harbour him,
And if I weren’t a moralist
I’d tear them limb from limb.

Fanatics are an evil breed
Whom decent men should shun;
I’d like to flog them till they bleed,
Yes, every mother’s son,
I’d like to tie them to a board
And let them taste the cat,
While giving praise, oh thank the Lord,
That I am not like that.

For we should love the human kind,
As Jesus taught us to,
And those who don’t should be struck blind
And beaten black and blue;
I’d like to roast them in a grill
And listen to them shriek,
Then break them on the wheel until
They turned the other cheek.

by Roger Woddis (1917-1993)

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Sometimes it happens…

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on April 10, 2013 by telescoper

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then
You are not friends,
And friendship has passed.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then
You are not loved,
And love is past.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then
You do not want to speak,
Then the opportunity has passed.
Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then
There is somewhere to go,
Then you have bypassed.
And the years flare up and are gone,
Quicker than a minute.

So you have nothing.
You wonder if these things matter and then
As soon you begin to wonder if these things matter
They cease to matter,
And caring is past.
And a fountain empties itself into the grass.

by Brian Patten (b. 1946)

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Always seeking greater silence

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 11, 2013 by telescoper

Just a quick plug for a fascinating programme I heard on BBC Radio 3 last night about the great Welsh poet R.S. Thomas. It’s called Always Seeking Greater Silence and it is available on iPlayer for your listening pleasure.

Here’s an excerpt from the published description of the programme:

RS Thomas was a man full of contradictions, but one constant was his passion for birdwatching. Towards the end of his life he said that ‘the deity has chosen to reveal himself to me via the world of nature’. He also declared that he preferred to be alone with nature than be with human beings. Bird imagery in particular provided him with a means of symbolising renewal, nourishment and femininity in his poetry, but also of exploring his faith in God. Increasingly towards the end of his life, his bird poems explored the space between faith and doubt. In ‘Sea-watching,’ he directly associates bird-watching with prayer: ‘Ah, but a rare bird is/ rare. It is when one is not looking/ at times one is not there/ that it comes’.

I have the utmost admiration for R.S. Thomas as a poet, but I do wonder how effective he was as a priest looking after his flock when he could come out with statements like the following:

I’ve had more pleasure from being alone with the natural creation than I have with human beings. Human beings are responsible for so much unhappiness and cruelty and failure that one is not terribly enthusiastic about them.

This rather bleak view of humanity explains to some extent why so many of his poems are about the natural world rather than people, but he is unlike many other “nature poets” in that his voice is unflinching and devoid of sentimentality. Although not religious myself, I also deeply respect his openness about his struggle with faith and doubt – he seems to me to have been a man who was deeply allergic to superficiality, a trait which also manifests itself in his verse.

It is the centenary of the birth of R.S. Thomas on 29th March 2013. I hope I remember to mark the occasion with an appropriate poem.

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A Song for St David’s Day

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 1, 2013 by telescoper

It’s St David’s Day today, so

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

I’m about to head off to three hours of mandatory Health and Safety Training so I’ll do a quick but appropriate post. I have posted this before, but I think it’s beautiful so make no apology for posting it again. It’s called Children’s Song and it’s by the great Welsh poet, R.S. Thomas.

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

by R.S. Thomas (1913-2000)

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Stars and Planets

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on February 20, 2013 by telescoper

Trees are cages for them: water holds its breath
To balance them without smudging on its delicate meniscus.
Children watch them playing in their heavenly playground;
Men use them to lug ships across oceans, through firths.

They seem so twinkle-still, but they never cease
Inventing new spaces and huge explosions
And migrating in mathematical tribes over
The steppes of space at their outrageous ease.

It’s hard to think that the earth is one –
This poor sad bearer of wars and disasters
Rolls-Roycing round the sun with its load of gangsters,
Attended only by the loveless moon.

by Norman MacCaig (1910-1996).

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Fifty Years On

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on February 12, 2013 by telescoper

I missed a sad anniversary yesterday. Fifty years ago, on 11th February 1963, the poet Sylvia Plath took her own life by putting her head in a gas oven. I’ve posted this poem before, but make no apology for posting it again as an act of remembrance..

They enter as animals from the outer
Space of holly where spikes
Are not thoughts I turn on, like a Yogi,
But greenness, darkness so pure
They freeze and are.

O God, I am not like you
In your vacuous black,
Stars stuck all over, bright stupid confetti.
Eternity bores me,
I never wanted it.

What I love is
The piston in motion —-
My soul dies before it.
And the hooves of the horses,
Their merciless churn.

And you, great Stasis —-
What is so great in that!
Is it a tiger this year, this roar at the door?
It is a Christus,
The awful

God-bit in him
Dying to fly and be done with it?
The blood berries are themselves, they are very still.

The hooves will not have it,
In blue distance the pistons hiss.

by Sylvia Plath (1932-63). Rest in peace.

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The Old Familiar Faces

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on January 29, 2013 by telescoper

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her —
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood.
Earth seemed a desart I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father’s dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces —

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

by Charles Lamb (1775-1834).

 

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Winter landscape, with rocks

Posted in Poetry with tags , on December 29, 2012 by telescoper

Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.

Last summer’s reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart’s waste
grow green again? Who’d walk in this bleak place?

by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

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