The Ballad of Reading Goal - Part II

The Ballad of Reading Goal - Part II  

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
In the suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay, 
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
 
I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye 
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
Its ravelled fleeces by.

Phantasmagoria - Canto I - by Lewis Carroll

Phantasmagoria by Lewis Carroll

Canto I--The Trystyng

One winter night, at half-past nine,
Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy,
I had come home, too late to dine,
And supper, with cigars and wine,
Was waiting in the study.

There was a strangeness in the room,
And Something white and wavy
Was standing near me in the gloom -
I took it for the carpet-broom
Left by that careless slavey.

The Ballad of Reading Goal - Part 1

The Ballad of Reading Goal by Oscar Wilde

 

He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men

In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

How I found my way out ...

How I found my way out ... by P.K.Odendaal - November 2013.

Note added to end on 29 November 2013.

I have taken this title from a series of books published over many years. Some of these titles are:

How I found my way out of:

Mormonism

Free Masonry

Catholicism

And many others.

 

And I think it is the most important thing in our lives to pursue the way out of hundreds of bondages and enslavements - by ourselves, by others and by society.

Hunting of the Snark - The last two fits

Fit the Seventh

The Banker's Fate
 

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

   They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

   They charmed it with smiles and soap.
 

And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new

   It was matter for general remark,

Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view

   In his zeal to discover the Snark

Our previous and next poem.

I have selected some poems here which I like most and I have presented them in parts not to overload the demand on your free time. The present one, namely Hunting of the Snark, excels in its clothes of nonsense because this humorous poem tells the tale of an impossible voyage for an improbable crew hunting an imaginary creature. It was very popular and rose from being read by only a few of my readers in the first fit to being read by almost all in the latest fit.

But on a deeper level you will find it is an allegory for the quest of happiness as Carroll himself once admitted. This quest for happiness is, as usual, also accompanied by the fears of doom and doom itself, because of the duality of life.

You might have noticed that there are ten personages involved having all their names being started with a B. Down deeper you will also meet the acrostic for one of Carrolls female child friends named Gertrude Chataway.

Our next poem, "The Ballad of Reading Goal" by Oscar Wilde, one of my all time favourites, will be exactly the opposite and will be an image of human suffering brought on by human hypocrisy - a malady we still suffer under today.

Democracy rehashed.

I have added a new note to this previously published article :

http://pkodendaal.blogspot.com/2012/04/philosophy-downfall-of-man-part-5.html

Hunting of the Snark - Fit the Sixth - The Barrister's Dream

Fit the Sixth: THE BARRISTER'S DREAM

But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain
That the Beaver's lace-making was wrong,
Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain
That his fancy had dwelt on so long. 

He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,
Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,
Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig
On the charge of deserting its sty. 

Hunting of the Snark - The Beaver's Lesson.

Hunting of the Snark - Fit the Fifth - The Beaver's Lesson - by Lewis Carroll.


Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan
For making a separate sally;
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,
A dismal and desolate valley. 

But the very same plan to the Beaver occurred:
It had chosen the very same place:
Yet neither betrayed, by a sign or a word,
The disgust that appeared in his face. 

Civilisation and Barbarism

Civilisation and Barbarism - by P.K.Odendaal - October 2014.

Note at the end added on 23 November 2013.
 

I have written a few futile attempts on civilisation, realising that it was very difficult to hunt it down, although not so difficult to kill. It is a very thin fabric and there is a growing concern in the world today that it might be very frail and that it might be under attack and that it might be very vulnerable. It was under serious attack more than a millenium ago and Europe escaped the total destruction of civilisation by the skin of its teeth.

Against civilisation, at the other extreme, I posit barbarism as its antidote, and though I respect both life forms, I only revere civilisation.