Tag: Robert Herrick

poetry appreciation

carpe while you can

Apr 8, 2021 #beauty, #carpe diem, #Gerard Manley Hopkins, #Herrick, #Hopkins, #Robert Herrick, #spring, #to daffodils, #transience by Lucy Crispin

For some reason, the only line I can remember from my first-term-at-Cambridge, deeply-uncomprehending reading of Gawain and the Green Knight is the line ‘Þe snawe snitered ful snart’. The snow snitered a bit this week (though not full snart) out of a beautiful blue sky; very odd and April-ish. We’ve also had some days, though, where ‘that blue has been all in a rush with richness’, so I thought today we could enjoy Hopkins’ lovely hymn to spring (have it read to you here. Poem starts at 1.19):

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poetry appreciation

more daffodils

Mar 12, 2020 #Britten, #celebration, #daffodils, #fair daffodils, #gather ye rosebuds, #Herrick, #lament, #Moeran, #mortality, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #Robert Herrick, #spring, #springtime, #to daffodils, #to the virgins to make much of time, #transience, #William Wordsworth, #Wordsworth by Lucy Crispin

Occasionally I get a bit of a painful meta-position on Being A Poet and wonder quite how tiresome we are as companions. Imagine going for a walk with us. I mean, can’t we just enjoy the first flowers of spring, for goodness’ sake? Wordsworth managed some pleasure and gratitude about the daffs (or was it Dorothy…?); Herrick, however, looks on daffs and thinks of death (a bit like Larkin and his trees, but we’ll get to that in May). I have to confess to having a fair dose of inner Herrick. I love his ‘To Daffodils’ a lot more than the Wordsworth; and, now I’ve said that, you can read the poem here while I sit back and wait to be struck down.

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