901

[7,767 letters]

50 FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT THE ROYAL WEDDING (opens in a new window)

902

[Sonnet 18 is anagrammed into four short poems discussing each of the four seasons.]

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

SUMMER

On one afternoon day, anybody will
Encounter loose paradise out in time,
Then some heaven has freed the thrill
Enclosed in this open rhyme.


AUTUMN

Some far sunsets are mellow sights
And trees have elegant shades;
These solid gems and wholesome lights
Are in the easy customs nature aids!


WINTER

A gladsome height of mammals' snores
(And those that cross from the north too,)
Embody through magic, silvery outdoors
And offer home: this lovable milieu.


SPRING

The blue sky above exhales a silent drift
To redeem a plant's creation,
A radiance must hold too swift
To reach higher, enhanced formation.

903

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Secret

If some say darkest ere it's dawn,
I say midnite.
I've found illicit taboos wan
If firewood I've herewith withdrawn.
Off forays forth familiar night
Hooded outline offers spite;
Accusation howled hot in hate:
"Douse the wick,
O curse the light!"

904

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

Rebellious Lions wander down the school
To outwit an evil threat. Unwise idiots, yet cool.
Fluffy the canine is a three-headed brute.
Yet Fluffy goes to sleep whenever he hears the flute.
Furious, the Lion children view weedy Devil's Snare;
They need eerie fire to wilily go out of there.
They're undaunted seeing many flying eerie keys;
With magical wooden brooms, they would outfly these.
Fourth's a wizard chessboard, sculptured dangers in white stone.
Ron leaves his friends to face more rooms alone.
Fifthly is a humongous, now unconscious troll.
Nauseous, they pass it, running onward to their goal.
Then between two deadly fires, they will need to think;
Hermione will point out to Harry which one to drink.
Finally, the riddle of the Mirror of Erised.
Harry finds the Stone, and survives whole (i.e., isn't dead.)

905

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

Who wouldn't want what these words picture?
I evoke quality; blind see vibrant mixture.
Scent with abiding knowhow led one's nose
I speak, I woo, I smell dew on high hedgerows.

906

[31,816 letters and numerals]

A list of 90 key facts about The Duke of Edinburgh (opens in a new window)

907

All in June
William Henry Davies

A week ago I had a fire
To warm my feet, my hands and face;
Cold winds, that never make a friend,
Crept in and out of every place.

Today the fields are rich in grass,
And buttercups in thousands grow;
I'll show the world where I have been--
With gold-dust seen on either shoe.

Till to my garden back I come,
Where bumble-bees for hours and hours
Sit on their soft, fat, velvet bums,
To wriggle out of hollow flowers.

June Wildfire

Wildfire blows with drafty wind,
Devastation smolders in its wake;
Forgive us Nature, we have sinned;
Acres succumb to human mistake.

Firefighters on hilltops in the fight,
For flames touch everything green;
Heavy smoke swallows up the light;
How can occluded mountains be seen?

Animals hear an otherworldly roar;
Bewildered deer have no food.
Unbearably hot flames at the core -
Deplorable tragedy to the wood!

908

[The first half of the first stanza of Paul Verlaine's Chanson d'automne was broadcast by the Allies over Radio Londres in 1944 as a code message to the French Resistance network VENTRILOQUIST in preparation for D-Day. When the second half was broadcast over the radio waves, it signaled that the invasion was to come in 24 hours. The subject is an English translation by Arthur Symons of Verlaine's poem; while the anagram, which includes the original first stanza in French, is my take on the event.]

Chanson d'automne

When a sighing begins
In the violins
Of the autumn-song,
My heart is drowned
In the slow sound
Languorous and long

Pale as with pain,
Breath fails me when
The hours tolls deep.
My thoughts recover
The days that are over
And I weep.

And I go
Where the winds know,
Broken and brief,
To and fro,
As the winds blow
A dead leaf.

Who had to disperse
The first verse
Of Paul Verlaine?
Hear this on Radio Londres
And then we'd under-
Stand, know when.

"Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone."

Hint about the ebbing fight.
Be awake, in sight.
"How? What? Which way?"
Washed from a high sea,
Happening at Normandy...
I wait for D-Day.

909

Life's a bitch,
And then you die;

A heinous death,
Inflicted by...?