John Whitworth: Great Poems Condensed I, II & III

Great Poems Condensed

Saint Agnes Eve—ah, bitter chill it was.

Hares, owls and shaggy sheepies were a-cold

Spite of fur, feathers, wool. This was because

The wind was bitter in the frozen fold,

Where squatters on their splendid horses doled

Out porridge to the swagmen, ghastly ’twas,

The place where wretched serfs were bought and sold,

The state Sokhov, where the heroic Boz,

A man both sage and eminently bold,

Had fought before the walls of Badajoz,

Which is in sunny Spain, if truth be told.

Most horrible it proved indeed, dear coz.

The wind was bitter in the frozen fold,

Spite of fur, feathers, wool. This was because

The animals were frozen in the wold,

Saint Agnes Eve—ah, bitter chill it was.

Great Poems Condensed II

Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, the crooked one,

That sentenced Adam in his birthday suit,

Who could not bear to think what he had done,

To all the torments of the deepest Hell,

The horrid brimstone and the fiery flame,

Where dancing devils with their pitchforks dwell,

And Satan, Prince of Darkness, rules the game,

I sing, John Milton, Cromwell’s right-hand man,

Now old and blind, now bloodied but unbowed,

To what the force of Holy Numbers can,

That will I do, to please the common crowd,

Who crave a happy ending, and because,

Our God is good they got it on the day

That Adam and his Eve (whose fault it was)

Through Eden took their solitary way.

John Whitworth

Great Poems Condensed III

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

And shattered by the broken window pane.

It’s like the body of the whooping crane,

Or like the pirates on the Spanish Main,

Or like the whuffling of the stopping train,

Or like the whirring of the aeroplane,

Or like the glittering of the precious bane,

Or like the spreading of the hideous stain,

Or like the splashing of the falling rain,

Or like assassin’s hands that clutch in vain,

Or like the gurgling of the bloody drain,

Or like the creaking of the wooden wain,

Or like mad Vlad, who started to complain,

Or like the capering of the crazy Dane,

Or like the barrow trundling up the lane,

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain.

John Whitworth