Post A Poem A Day – Page 13 – Interesting Literature

‘My Love Is Like to Ice, and I to Fire’: A Poem by Edmund Spenser

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Taken from Edmund Spenser’s 1590s sonnet sequence Amoretti, this poem opens with a paradox: how come the poet’s fiery desire for his ice-cold beloved doesn’t thaw her coldness, but actually makes her even icier and more standoffish? Similarly, how come her coldness doesn’t cool his fire?

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?

‘To a Louse’: A Poem by Robert Burns

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘To a Louse’, a poem written in the metre of standard Habbie, sees Robert Burns musing upon the louse that he spots crawling on a lady’s bonnet in church – the louse does not observe class distinctions and regards all human beings equally, as potential hosts.

‘Stars, I have seen them fall’: A Poem by A. E. Housman

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Stars, I have seen them fall…’: this short eight-line poem by A. E. Housman (1859-1936) is untitled, so we’ve given its first line here. Although the stars seem to fall, they remain in the sky; although rain falls into the sea, the sea remains the same saltwater it has always been. Housman’s poem is about futility, and offers a less celebratory take on the stars in the night sky than the one we tend to get from much (especially Romantic) poetry.

Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;

‘Never Give All the Heart’: A Poem by W. B. Yeats

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

As the title of this short Yeats poem makes clear, the great Irish poet W. B. Yeats offers the would-be lover some advice: don’t dive headlong into love or infatuation, for your beloved won’t thank you for it: never give all the heart. It’s best to keep a little passion back: ‘He that made this knows all the cost, / For he gave all his heart and lost.’

Never Give All the Heart

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;

‘The Badger’: A Poem by John Clare

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

How many great poems about badgers are there in English literature? ‘The Badger’, by the criminally underrated English Romantic poet John Clare (1793-1864), is perhaps the greatest of this small and select group. ‘The Badger’ is written in rhyming couplets, also known as ‘heroic couplets’ – and although Clare describes the way the badger is hunted and caught, he imbues the creature with a quiet heroism and nobility. After describing the badger’s appearance and habits, Clare then details how the badger is caught, trapped, and baited.

The Badger

The badger grunting on his woodland track
With shaggy hide and sharp nose scrowed with black
Roots in the bushes and the woods, and makes
A great high burrow in the ferns and brakes.
With nose on ground he runs an awkward pace,
And anything will beat him in the race.
The shepherd’s dog will run him to his den
Followed and hooted by the dogs and men.