Robin's Nest

A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed

by Jonathan Swift

Corinna, Pride of Drury-Lane,

For whom no Shepherd sighs in vain;

Never did Covent Garden boast

So bright a batter’d, strolling Toast;

No drunken Rake to pick her up,

No Cellar where on Tick to sup;

Returning at the Midnight Hour;

Four Stories climbing to her Bow’r;

Then, seated on a three-legg’d Chair,

Takes off her artificial Hair:

Now, picking out a Crystal Eye,

She wipes it clean, and lays it by.

Her Eye-Brows from a Mouse’s Hide,

Stuck on with Art from either Side,

Pulls off with Care, and first displays ’em,

Then in a Play-book smoothly lays ’em.

Now dextrously her Plumpers draws,

That serve to fill her hollow Jaws.

Untwists a Wire; and from her Gums

A Set of Teeth completely comes.

Pulls out the Rags contriv’d to prop

Her flabby Dugs and down they drop.

Proceeding on, the lovely Goddess

Unlaces next her Steel-Rib’d Bodice;

Which by the Operator’s Skill,

Press down the Lumps, the Hollows fill,

Up goes her Hand, and off she slips

The Bolsters that supply her Hips.

With gentlest Touch, she next explores

Her Shankers, Issues, running Sores;

Effects of many a sad Disaster;

And then to each applies a Plaster.

But must, before she goes to Bed,

Rub off the daubs of White and Red;

And smooth the Furrows in her Front,

With greasy Paper stuck up on’t.

She takes a Bolus e’er she sleeps;

And then between two Blankets creeps.

With pains of love tormented lies;

Or if she chance to close her Eyes,

Of Bridewell and the Compter dreams,

And feels the Lash, and faintly screams;

Or, by a faithless Bully drawn,

At some Hedge-Tavern lies in Pawn;

Or to Jamaica seems transported,

Alone, and by no Planter courted;

Or, by Fleet-Ditch’s oozy Brinks,

Surrounded with a Hundred Stinks,

Belated, seems on watch to lie,

And snap some Cull passing by;

Or, struck with Fear, her Fancy runs

On Watchmen, Constables and Duns,

From whom she meets with frequent Rubs;

But, never from Religious Clubs;

Whose favour she is sure to find,

Because she pays them all in Kind.

CORINNA wakes. A dreadful Sight!

Behold the Ruins of the Night!

A wicked Rat, her Plaster stole;

Half eat, and dragged it to his Hole.

The Crystal Eye, alas, was miss’d;

And Puss had on her Plumpers piss’d.

A Pigeon pick’d her Issue-Peas;

And Shock her tresses fill’d with Fleas.

The Nymph, tho’ in this mangled Plight;

Must ev’ry Morn her Limbs unite.

But how shall I describe her Arts

To recollect the scatter’d Parts?

Or show the Anguish, Toil, and Pain,

Of gath’ring up herself again?

The bashful Muse will never bear

In such a Scene to interfere.

Corinna in the Morning dizen’d,

Who sees, will spew; who smells, be poison’d.

Love Sonnet XI

by P Neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day.

I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sweet laugh,

Your hands the color of a savage harvest,

Hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,

I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,

The sovereign nose of your arrogant face,

I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

And I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,

Hunting for you, for your hot heart,

Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

First Love

by Brian Patten

Falling in love was like falling down the stairs

Each stair had her name on it

And he went bouncing down each one like a tongue-tied lunatic

One day of loving her was an ordinary year

He transformed her into what he wanted

And the scent from her

Was the best scent in the world

Fifteen he was fifteen

Each night he dreamed of her

Each day he telephoned her

Each day was unfamiliar

Scary even

And the fear of her going weighed on him like a stone

And when he could not see her for two nights running

It seemed a century had passed

And meeting her and staring at her face

He knew he would feel as he did forever

Hopelessly in love

Sick with it

And not even knowing her second name

It was the first time

The best time

A time that would last forever

Because it was new

Because he was ignorant it could never end

It was endless

Misogyny

by Gwyneth Lewis

I see you, great literary men, holding a party

Just beyond me. You are loving and greeting

Each other while I’m caught in the junk room

Of your misogynies: mahogany furniture

Shipped from crises on older continents,

Is blocking my way. Massive and polished,

They shine in the gloom, recalcitrant. Grand

Lyrical Men who tried to fuck me

(You know who you are) I see you wave in

Those who you favour, leaving me pinned

To the wall by a linen press. Brass teeth,

Ferocious, snap at my nipples. An insistent caster

Sucks at my mouth, while a cabriole leg

Juts up my jacksie. Aggressive chattels

Of others’ unstated fears. What do you see

In me so disgusts you? What has to be

Fucked then blotted out so that you

Can bear it? That you were babies once,

Helpless? That the world’s a bad breast, doesn’t

Obey? Or, horror of horrors, the will

Doesn’t work power’s beside the point.

Grow up. This is your junk and I refuse it. From

My dead end, I see others in traps of ice

And iron, we wave at each other, we’re coming,

Your days are numbered. So will we project

Onto you, make you a hedgehog, pierced

By your furniture’s splintering? No.

Look, here’s my mother’s clothes horse,

What if we cover it with a blanket

Making a room where anyone may play,

And learn not being afraid together?

London

by William Blake

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,

The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,

And the hapless Soldiers sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlots curse

Blast the new-born Infants tear

And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

1969 – a year of great happenings

A lot of things happened in 1969:

The Beatles made their last live appearance — on a rooftop;

They also released their 11th studio album — Abbey Road;

Brian Jones quit the Rolling Stones and less than a month later was found dead in his swimming pool;

Michael Caine starred in the British film The Italian Job;

Rupert Murdoch bought The News of the World and later in the year relaunched The Sun as a tabloid;

Man landed on the Moon;

Charles was invested as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon (two Welsh Nationalists blew themselves up while planting a bomb in Abergele).

The Kray twins went down for life for murder;

Monty Python’s Flying Circus was launched;

My brother Nigel got married and borrowed 7s6d off me to pay for the licenceb

and

I was given the right to vote but couldn’t use it until the next year.

Not all of these meant a lot to me at the time – except for getting the right to vote. It meant I needed to complete my studies into which party was worthy of my vote.

The one thing that kept cropping up was the slogan:

“from each according to ability; for each according to need”

It is said to be a Communist philosophy and was generally attributed to Karl Marx in the late 19th century but was given, not necessarily in the same words but with the same principles, by others interested in the plight of the working people.

It can actually be traced back in varying forms and in various societies at least 2,000 years.

In fact in Acts 2: 44-45 and Acts 4: 32-35 it is clear that those who followed Jesus and studied his teachings sold all their property and possessions and gave it for the use of the group, doling out funds to feed and clothe followers as needed.

This certainly sounds like a socialist society — nowadays they’d be dismissed as a group of hippies or old crusties — but it was not the first.

It appears wherever there were people there were groups working together to help each other.

At the same time there were those who didn’t necessarily care about others but just wanted to use their work to benefit themselves.

The thing I had to decide was — which came first: the socialist chicken or the capitalist golden egg.

Call me an optimist but I felt sure that when the first of the homo sapiens abandoned the trees and grouped together they worked to help each other.

Hunters hunted; others collected berries and fruits; then there were those who planted the seeds and grew them on.

The earliest form of a co-operative society.

I couldn’t cram the whole of humankind into my periods of study set between work and home.

I did concentrate on conditions for workers in the 19th century and the early 20th century and realised that when they got together to form working men’s associations and unions they were harking back to the dawn of history.

That was when I clicked to the fact that the Tory Party were too keen to maintain the status quo and the Liberals didn’t really have any idea.

I had ruled out any form of Welsh nationalism long before because we are stronger as a whole.

I had already realised that the strength of the working people lay in unity and that it was the unions that made us strong.

I also came to my own understanding that there was only one party that embodied the principles I believed in.

Also Labour had been the governing party for the vast majority of my teens.

When my first chance came to vote for my chosen party in June 1970 I voted for the Labour Party candidate John Evans, hoping that finally the Conservative hold on the West Flintshire Parliamentary seat would be lost.

The seat had been held for many years by Sir Nigel Birch but he had stood down and the new candidate was Anthony Meyer.

Unfortunately my first real step into the world of politics was not a resounding success. The Tories won again with an increased majority.

Was I downhearted?

No.

Did I lose faith in Labour?

No.

Having come to Labour through socialism and a study of the history of the working people my belief has only been strengthened over the years by defeats as well as victories.

I did not join Labour because of family tradition (I never really knew my parents’ real political persuasion) but because of the principles I held dear.

Through the good times and the bad I have always believed in the rights of the working people and in the main (there have been blips) the party has followed that course.

Mind you my opinion of Tory MPs might not have been advanced by my one and only close contact with Nigel Birch.

It happened in late 1969 when many organisations held their annual dinner dances.

The local NFU had invited a Labour minister of state to be their guest of honour. Memory is hazy but I believe it was Fred Peart.

Brian Barratt, the editor, suggested that I should attend.

I actually hired a dinner suit for the occasion.

It was my first ever formal dinner dance and I was surrounded by all the other penguins in dinner jackets and dickie bows and their more brightly attired partners.

I was seated opposite Nigel Birch who did not appear to have a very high opinion of local reporters. Seated next to me was a white-haired gentleman who was the only guest NOT wearing a DJ.

He was dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit, double-breasted, with a white shirt, displaying plain gold cuff-links, and a dark blue tie.

He actually made the other men present appear badly-dressed.

During the meal he was very affable and even asked if I would like to share a bottle of a good red wine with him.

Meanwhile Nigel Birch was getting gradually drunk directly opposite me.

By the time Mr Peart got up to speak the Tory MP had got into his stride and started barracking the speaker and banging his fist on the table.

Clearly nobody wanted to say anything to the local MP – except for my dinner companion who looked across the table and quietly said: “Nigel, do be quiet and try not to be such a boor.”

Nigel Birch immediately stopped and slumped into his seat like a naughty little boy who had been told off by nanny.

I was astonished that this quietly-spoken man could silence a Tory MP so easily.

He had introduced himself to me as Lloyd and at the time I remember commenting that my grandfather’s surname was Lloyd.

I later discovered he was Lloyd Tyrell-Kenyon, 5th Baron Kenyon, and a hereditary peer.

What I did recognise was that he was a gentleman of the old school. Whereas Birch was an indicator of what the Tories were to become.

Lord Kenyon’s gentlemanly behaviour was not enough to outweigh my already growing dislike of Tories like Birch.

I have stood by my socialist principles ever since.

The Song of the Classes

by Ernest Jones
Chartist leader and poet, 1819-1869; sentenced in 1848 to two years’ imprisonment.

We plow and sow — we’re so very, very low

That we delve in the dirty clay,

‘Till we bless the plain — with the golden grain,

And the vale with the fragrant hay.

Our place we know — we’re so very low,

‘Tis down at the landlord’s feet:

We’re not too low — the bread to grow,

But too low the bread to eat.

Down, down we go — we’re so very, very low

To the hell of the deep sunk mines,

But we gather the proudest gems that glow

Where the crown of a despot shines,

And whenever he lacks — upon our backs

Fresh loads he deigns to lay:

We’re far too low to vote the tax,

But not too low to pay.

We’re low — we’re low — mere rabble we know

But at our plastic power

The mould at the lordling’s feet will grow

Into palace and church and tower —

Then prostrate fall — in the rich man’s hall,

And cringe at the rich man’s door:

We’re not too low to build the wall,

But too low to tread the floor.

We’re low — we’re low — we’re very, very low,

Yet from our fingers glide

The silken flow — and the robes that glow

Round the limbs of the sons of pride.

And what we get — and what we give —

We know, and we know our share:

We’re not too low the cloth to weave

But too low the cloth to wear.

We’re low — we’re low — we’re very, very low,

And yet when the trumpets ring,

The thrust of a poor man’s arm will go

Through the heart of the proudest king.

We’re low — we’re low — our place we know

We’re only the rank and file,

We’re not too low to kill the foe,

But too low to touch the spoil.

September 1, 1939

by WH Auden

I sit in one of the dives

On Fifty-second Street

Uncertain and afraid

As the clever hopes expire

Of a low dishonest decade:

Waves of anger and fear

Circulate over the bright

And the darkened lands of the earth,

Obsessing our private lives;

The unmentionable odour of death

Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can

Unearth the whole offence

From Luther until now

That has driven a culture mad,

Find what occurred at Linz

What huge imago made

A psychopathic god:

I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew

All that a speech can say

About Democracy,

And what dictators do,

The elderly rubbish they talk

To an apathetic grave;

Analysed all in his book,

The enlightenment driven away,

The habit forming pain,

Mismanagement and grief;

We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air

Where blind skyscrapers use

Their full height to proclaim

The strength of Collective Man,

Each language pours its pain

Competitive excuse:

But who can live for long

In an euphoric dream;

Out of the mirror they stare,

Imperialism’s face

And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play,

All the conventions conspire

To make this fort assume

The furniture of home;

Lest we should see where we are,

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash

Important Persons shout

Is not so crude as our wish:

What mad Nijinsky wrote

About Diaghilev

Is true of the normal heart;

For the error bred in the bone

Of each woman and each man

Craves what it cannot have,

Not universal love

But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark

Into the ethical lufe

The dense commuters come,

Repeating their morning vow;

“I will be true to the wife,

I’ll concentrate more on my work,”

And helpless governors wake

To resume their compulsory game:

Who can release them now,

Who can reach the deaf,

Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice

To undo the folded lie,

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street

And the lie of Authority

Whose buildings grope the sky;

There is no such thing as the State

And no-one exists alone;

Hunger allows no choice

To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

Candy Man

by Roald Dahl

Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew

Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two

The candy man, the candy man can

The candy man can ’cause he mixes it with love

And makes the world taste good

Who can take a rainbow, wrap it in a sigh

Soak it in the sun and make a strawberry-lemon pie

The candy man?

The candy man, the candy man can

The candy man can ’cause he mixes it with love

And makes the world taste good

Willy Wonka makes everything he bakes

Satisfying and delicious

Talk about your childhood wishes

You can even eat the dishes

Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream

Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream

The candy man, Willy Wonka can, the candy man can

The candy man can ’cause he mixes it with love

And makes the world taste good

And the world tastes good

Cause the candy man thinks it should