Folklore Impact: Poetry Edition

Illustration by A.A. Milne

In honor of National Poetry Day in the UK, I thought I might share a poem from one of my favorite British poets... But I guess they're like potato chips and I can't have just one! So here are some poems from three of my favorite British poets and me being who I am, I immediately latched on to poems with blatant folklore motifs.

More than just the subject matter, though, each of these poems demonstrates the hold folklore has on our psyche and the enduring impression that the tales from our youth can leave upon us.

Poem 1 WE HAVE THE FAIRY TALES BY HEART

We have the fairy tales by heart,

No longer tremble at a bishop's hat,

And the thunder's first note;

We have these little things off pat,

Avoid church as a rat;

We scorn the juggernaut,

And the great wheels' rut;

Half of the old gang's shot,

Thank God, but the enemy stays put.

We know our Mother Goose and Eden,

No longer fear the walker in the garden,

And the fibs for children;

The old spells are undone.

But still ghosts madden,

A cupboard skeleton

Raises the hairs of lad and maiden.

If dead men walked they, too, would holler

At sight of death, the last two fisted killer

Stained a blood colour;

A panic's pallor

Would turn the dead yellow.

We have by heart the children's stories,

Have blown sky high the nursery of fairies;

Still a world of furies

Burns in many mirrors.

Death and evil are twin spectres.

What shall destruction count if these are fixtures?

Why blot the pictures

Of elves and satyrs

If these two gnomes remain unmoved by strictures?

We have the stories backwards,

Torn out magic from the hearts of cowards

By nape and gizzards;

There are two laggards,

Death and evil, too slow in heeding words.

Tear by the roots these twin growths in your gut;

Shall we learn fairy tales off pat,

Not benefit from that?

Burn out the lasting rot,

Fear death as little as the thunder's shot,

The holy hat.

-Dylan Thomas

Poem 2

KNIGHT-IN-ARMOUR

Whenever I'm a shining Knight,

I buckle on my armour tight;

And then I look about for things,

Like Rushings-Out, and Rescuings,

And Savings from the Dragon's Lair,

And fighting all the Dragons there.

And sometimes when our fights begin,

I think I'll let the Dragons win...

And then I think perhaps I won't,

Because they're Dragons, and I don't.

-A. A. Milne

(It's perhaps a little on the nose here, but it's almost impossible not to think of the often misquoted, and misattributed, line by G. K. Chesterson here: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”)

Poem 3

ROBIN HOOD

To a Friend

No! those days are gone away

And their hours are old and gray,

And their minutes buried all

Under the down-trodden pall

Of the leaves of many years:

Many times have winter's shears,

Frozen North, and chilling East,

Sounded tempests to the feast

Of the forest's whispering fleeces,

Since men knew nor rent nor leases.

         No, the bugle sounds no more,

And the twanging bow no more;

Silent is the ivory shrill

Past the heath and up the hill;

There is no mid-forest laugh,

Where lone Echo gives the half

To some wight, amaz'd to hear

Jesting, deep in forest drear.

         On the fairest time of June

You may go, with sun or moon,

Or the seven stars to light you,

Or the polar ray to right you;

But you never may behold

Little John, or Robin bold;

Never one, of all the clan,

Thrumming on an empty can

Some old hunting ditty, while

He doth his green way beguile

To fair hostess Merriment,

Down beside the pasture Trent;

For he left the merry tale

Messenger for spicy ale.

         Gone, the merry morris din;

Gone, the song of Gamelyn;

Gone, the tough-belted outlaw

Idling in the "grenè shawe";

All are gone away and past!

And if Robin should be cast

Sudden from his turfed grave,

And if Marian should have

Once again her forest days,

She would weep, and he would craze:

He would swear, for all his oaks,

Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes,

Have rotted on the briny seas;

She would weep that her wild bees

Sang not to her—strange! that honey

Can't be got without hard money!

         So it is: yet let us sing,

Honour to the old bow-string!

Honour to the bugle-horn!

Honour to the woods unshorn!

Honour to the Lincoln green!

Honour to the archer keen!

Honour to tight little John,

And the horse he rode upon!

Honour to bold Robin Hood,

Sleeping in the underwood!

Honour to maid Marian,

And to all the Sherwood-clan!

Though their days have hurried by

Let us two a burden try.

-John Keats

I felt I could hardly exclude Keats, if I was going to have poems waxing rhapsodic about the lingering influence of folklore. (A contrast between the takeaways that Dylan and Keats have on Greek Mythology might come another time.)

The Robin Hood poem felt especially appropriate as the stories of Sherwood's bold outlaw had a heavy impression upon me as a child. (Why yes, I did get teased for wearing a Robin Hood hat to school. Why do you ask?)