[David Anthony]

I have an Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 1966 Edition, and a Chambers Dictionary of Quotations, 1996 Edition, and I regard them both equally, but they have remarkably little overlap.
This ode is extensively quoted in the former, and not at all in the latter.
It wasn't much liked by my English teacher when I was a schoolboy in the 1960s. Even so, I thought it was magical, and still do.

WE are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

[conny]

I agree.
They don`t make `em like that anymore.
It`s like a hypnotic incantation. I don`t really know what it`s about and don`t really care. It just feels that heard once it begs to be recited over and over, with a kind of urgency in the voice. I tried a search for O`Shaughnassy but drew a total blank. Do you know anything about him ?
I have a fondness for the `Boys Own' school and should have put something on Alicia Stalling`s recent thread on guilty pleasures, but went for Burns instead.
In a similar vein, James Elroy Flecker is really my hypnotic hero, and I`m past caring why. This one the first thing I had by heart;


The Old Ships

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep
Beyond the village which men still call Tyre,
With leaden age o`ercargoed, dipping deep
For Famagusta and the hidden sun
That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire;
And all those ships were certainly so old-
Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun,
Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,
The pirate Genoese
Hell raked them till they rolled
Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.
But now through friendly seas they softly run,
Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green,
Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold.

But I have seen,
Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn
And image tumbled on a rose-swept bay,
A drowsy ship of some yet older day;
And, wonder`s breath indrawn,
Thought I- Who knows- Who knows- But in that same
(Fished up beyond Aeaea, patched up new
-Stern painted brighter blue-)
That talkative bald headed seamen came
(Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar)
From Troy`s doom crimson shore,
And with great lies about his wooden horse
Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course.

It was so old a ship- Who knows, who knows?
- And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain
To see the mast burst open with a rose,
And the whole deck put on its leaves again.


Is this a kids poem? I still don`t know.


Regards
DC

[David Anthony]

Well, here's a link to some basic information: http://www.ask.co.uk/answer.asp?qCategory=REF_&pick=true&origin=0&qSour ce=21&ask=arthur+o&frames=True&site_name=ukkb&scop e=web&metasearch=True&r=&hasblanks=&prn=False&aj_i s=yes&aj_ product=answers&aj_ques=snapshot%3DUKKB%26kbid%3D3 488671%26item1%3D3473306-3474359&aj_logid=81A022148CCD2C4CAE922E587F834931& aj_rank=1&aj_score=1&aj_list1=3473306-3474359&Ask.x=13& Ask.y=15
The poem's about poets.
I enjoyed the poem you posted. I think it's flawed but has a considerable majesty.
Regards

[This message has been edited by David Anthony (edited December 13, 2001).]

[Nigel Holt]

Hello, David,

I know this through Elgar's adaptation. It's funny to see it as a poem - not knowing the history of it. I'll keep an eye out for other poems by the man (it's far too early in the morning to try and spell his name correctly!)

Nigel

[Terese Coe]

David

It's stunning! To be say in a single poem that poets are "world-losers and world-forsakers" and "the movers and shakers/ of the world forever": such a reassuring tour de force. And O'Shaughnessy lived from 1844 to 1881: a mere 37 at his death. Unfortunately, when I clicked on your link, it brought me right back to this page! Ironic.

What I keep wondering is this: can anyone think of an example of a "new song's measure" [trampling] "a kingdom down"? Hmm.

Conny. I looked up Flecker as well, and he died even younger than O'Shaugnessy! A mere 31. The final couplet is utterly exhilarating. Love the "Who knows, who knows?"

And these lines by Flecker too:

We Poets of the proud old lineage
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why,—

[—The Golden Journey to Samarkand]

The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea.

[—The Gates of Damascus]

I wonder if they died of TB, or at sea?

Terese

[David Anthony]

Spooky

Terese, I tried it too, and it did the same to me; so I edited and reinput the link, and it still did the same.
Clearly the Gods of the Internet have decided this thread is the main source of information on O'Shaughnessy.
Poor O'Shaughnessy!