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British TV and another poem by somebody else entirely

Patti Niehoff — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:43:32 +0000

Watched an episode of the seemingly endless British TV mysteries that I seem to be well able to ferret out on Netflix: Kavanagh QC. This series stars John Thaw, who is famous in America for the Inspector Morse series that he starred in.

But I digress.

I note that fact because it explains the latest addition to my almost-never-updated anthology section here on the blog, wherein I reprint shamelessly poems by other people that I love. And what has this got to do with anything? you ask. I’m getting there, I reply.

The last time I added a poem — The Death Bed by Siegfried Sassoon — it was because I heard it recited at the very end of an episode of NUMB3RS. Five seconds’ worth of Googling got me to the poem, and it is one of the two most popular poems in the anthology section.

And now, this: South Country by Hillaire Belloc. The last ten lines were recited at the very end of this episode of Kavanagh QC.

Nobody writes poems in these striding dactylic meters any more, more’s the pity.

Filed under: Poetry, Literature, and Writing, Television Tagged: John Thaw, Kavanagh QC, Netflix, poetry, Siegfried Sassoon, Television in the United Kingdom

South Country: Hilaire Belloc

Patti Niehoff — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:37:05 +0000

WHEN I am living in the Midlands
That are sodden and unkind,
I light my lamp in the evening:
My work is left behind;
And the great hills of the South Country	5
Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea;
And it’s there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be,	10
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me.

The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day:
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,	15
Their skies are fast and grey;
From their castle-walls a man may see
The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong,	20
A-rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along.
They have the secret of the Rocks,
And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country	25
Are the kindest and most wise,
They get their laughter from the loud surf,
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our Sister the Spring
When over the sea she flies;	30
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines
But I smell the Sussex air;
Nor I never come on a belt of sand	35
But my home is there.
And along the sky the line of the Downs
So noble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find,
Nor a broken thing mend:	40
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end.
Who will there be to comfort me
Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and carefully make my friends	45
Of the men of the Sussex Weald;
They watch the stars from silent folds,
They stiffly plough the field.
By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed.	50

If I ever become a rich man,
Or if ever I grow to be old,
I will build a house with deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold,
And there shall the Sussex songs be sung	55
And the story of Sussex told.

I will hold my house in the high wood
Within a walk of the sea,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me.	60