Chanson d’Automne

Autumn Song or Chanson d’automne is a famous poem by Paul Verlaine; one of the best known in the French language. It was published in Verlaine’s first collection, Poèmes saturniens, published in 1866.

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Blessent mon cœur
D’une langueur
Monotone.

It translates as: “The long sobs / Of the violins / Of Autumn / Wound my heart / With a monotonous / Languor.”

The poem earned its place in history during World War II. In preparation for Operation Overlord, the British had signalled to the French Resistance that the opening lines of Chanson d’Automne were to indicate the start of D-Day operations. The first three lines of the poem, “Les sanglots longs / des violons / de l’automne”, meant that Operation Overlord was to start within two weeks.

These lines were broadcast on 1 June 1944.

The next set of lines, “Blessent mon coeur / d’une langueur / monotone”, meant that the main operation would start within 48 hours and that the French resistance should begin sabotage operations especially on the French railroad system.

These lines were broadcast on 5 June at 23:15 – the rest is history.

Blood On The Rooftops

Dark and grey, an English film, the Wednesday play
We always watch the Queen on Christmas Day
Won’t you stay?

Though your eyes see shipwrecked sailors you’re still dry
The outlook’s fine though Wales might have some rain
Saved again.

Let’s skip the news boy (I’ll go and make some tea)
Arabs and Jews boy (too much for me)
They get me confused boy (puts me off to sleep)
And the thing I hate, oh Lord!
Is staying up late, to watch some debate, on some nation’s fate.

Hypnotized by Batman, Tarzan, still surprised!
You’ve won the West in time to be our guest
Name your prize!

Drop of wine, a glass of beer dear what’s the time?
The grime on the Tyne is mine all mine all mine
Five past nine.

Blood on the rooftops, Venice in the spring
The Streets of San Francisco, a word from Peking
The trouble was started, by a young Errol Flynn
Better in my day, oh Lord!
For when we got bored, we’d have a world war, happy but poor
So let’s skip the news boy – I’ll go and make some tea
Blood on the rooftops – too much for me
When old Mother Goose stops, and they’re out for twenty three
Then the rain at Lords stopped play
Seems Helen of Troy has found a new face again.

- Steve Hackett, Phil Collins

The Soldier

‘If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.’

- Rupert Brooke

The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

(Lines 75 to 86)

‘And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet–and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.’

- T.S. Eliot

Quality Test 43

‘Little owlet in the glen,

I’m ashamed of you;
You are ungrammatical

In speaking as you do.
You should say, “To whom! to whom!”

Not, “To who! to who!”
Your small friend,

Miss Katy-did,
May be green, ’tis true,
But you never heard her say,

“Katydo!shedo!”‘

- William Hudspeth

Metrical Feet

The foot is the basic metrical unit that generates a line of verse in most Western traditions of poetry, including English accentual-syllabic verse and the quantitative meter of classical ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The unit is composed of syllables, the number of which is limited, with a few variations, by the sound pattern the foot represents. The most common feet in English are the iamb, trochee, dactyl, and anapest.

The foot is a purely metrical unit; there is no inherent relation to a word or phrase as a unit of meaning or syntax, though the interplay among these is an aspect of the individual poet’s skill and artistry.

Below are listed the names given to the poetic feet by classical metrics. The feet are classified first by the number of syllables in the foot: disyllables have two, trisyllables three, and tetrasyllables four.

¯ = stressed/long syllable, ˘ = unstressed/short syllable (macron and breve notation)

Disyllables

˘ ˘	pyrrhus, dibrach
˘ ¯	iamb
¯ ˘	trochee, choree (or choreus)
¯ ¯	spondee

Trisyllables

˘ ˘ ˘	tribrach
¯ ˘ ˘	dactyl
˘ ¯ ˘	amphibrach
˘ ˘ ¯	anapest, antidactylus
˘ ¯ ¯	bacchius
¯ ¯ ˘	antibacchius
¯ ˘ ¯	cretic, amphimacer
¯ ¯ ¯	molossus

Tetrasyllables

˘ ˘ ˘ ˘	tetrabrach, proceleusmatic
¯ ˘ ˘ ˘	primus paeon
˘ ¯ ˘ ˘	secundus paeon
˘ ˘ ¯ ˘	tertius paeon
˘ ˘ ˘ ¯	quartus paeon
¯ ¯ ˘ ˘	major ionic, triple trochee
˘ ˘ ¯ ¯	minor ionic, double iamb
¯ ˘ ¯ ˘	ditrochee
˘ ¯ ˘ ¯	diiamb
¯ ˘ ˘ ¯	choriamb
˘ ¯ ¯ ˘	antispast
˘ ¯ ¯ ¯	first epitrite
¯ ˘ ¯ ¯	second epitrite
¯ ¯ ˘ ¯	third epitrite
¯ ¯ ¯ ˘	fourth epitrite
¯ ¯ ¯ ¯	dispondee

Acrostic

An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message.

Ichthys

As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval.

A famous acrostic was made in Greek for the acclamation JESUS CHRIST, GOD’S SON, SAVIOUR. The initials in Greek spell ICHTHYS, Greek for fish – hence the frequent use of the fish as a symbol for Jesus Christ from the early days of Christianity to the present time.

There is a classic example of acrostic poem in English written by Edgar Allan Poe is entitled simply “An Acrostic”:

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.

Adam and Newborn Children

‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.’

- Vonnegut. K. 1968. Welcome To The Monkey House New York, United States: The Daily Press p. 50

Funeral Blues

He was my North, my South, my East and West
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song
I thought that love would last forever – I was wrong

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood
For nothing now can ever come to any good

- W. H. Auden