L: “Let us begin and carry up this corpse,” (A Grammarian’s Funeral) by Robert Browning (1855)
A to Z 2026: "Katherina say..." from Goethe's Faust (1790)
Bonus:
Summary: The devil to sing a sexy song to help the guy whose soul he bought get laid.
Commentary: Another short one, let's just have the whole thing:
Kathrina say,
Why lingering stay
At dawn of day
Before your lover's door?
Maiden, beware,
Nor enter there,
Lest forth you fare,
A maiden never more.
Maiden take heed!
Reck well my rede!
Is't done, the deed?
Good night, you poor, poor thing!
The spoiler's lies, His arts despise,
Nor yield your prize,
Without the marriage ring!
(The previous line indicates that this is Mephistopheles singing while he plays guitar. I fucking love Faust.)
Bonus:
Summary: Hey, remember these?
Commentary:
118-120: Just be chill with people you meet.
119: Apologize, don't make excuses. (Someday, people will learn all the stuff in these 400+year old books. Until then, we'll recycle the same 12 things for self help books.)
128: Don't waste your time talking to people if you don't have a reason.
131: "If thou thinkest twice, before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it." We got a regular Ben Franklin over here.
142: Even if you're right, you just make your cause look bad if you're a hot head.
145: Don't believe, or spread, rumors.
“Jamie, come try me” by Robert Burns (1791?)
Bonus:
Summary: COME AT ME, BRO! (But with kisses.)
Commentary: Uhoh, drunkish blogging. This is a fun one. And very readable for Burns.
6/5 feet per line. Most of them rhyme we "E" except the loves.
So much BURNS! The other options were mostly Jehova...
3/5
“I put my hat…” by Samuel Johnson
Bonus:
Summary: He puts on a hat.
Commentary: It's so short, I'll just paste the whole thing in:
I put my hat upon my head
And walked into the Strand,
And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand.
Bonus:
Summary: I was feeling indecisive and so we're doing three poems today.
Commentary:
1. "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Tennyson (1854)
Speaking of famous historical things...
There is, apparently, not a Sabaton song for this yet, which is surprising.
6ish (bounces with 5 and 7, unless we're doing some creative slurring) feet per line. Inconsistent rhyme scheme (usually 2 or 3 in the middle of a stanza).
Always go half a league more. Half is a good amount. A whole league is too much, but just a half a step further than people expect is usually manageable, practical, and impressive.
Tonight's "classics phrase" is: "Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die."
4/5 pretty good poem.
2. "Ode on Solitude" by Alexander Pope (~1700)
8 feet, except the final line of each stanza (4). ABAB (with some aggressive slanting.
My only real comment on this one (pretty short) is how it's interesting that this dream is still widespread over 300 years later (and had been for over 1000 years before that). Man just wants a little farm and to farm and study. 3/5
3. "Hard Nuts" by John Bunyan (1678)
A poem about reading hard stuff! That's what this blog is about! 11 feet, AAAA scheme.
It's fine. I'd skip it if it wasn't thematic. 2/5
A to Z 2026: “Get up, get up for shame” by Robert Herrick (~1616)
Bonus:
Summary: MOVE YOUR BUTT!
Commentary:
Not quite May yet, but we're about two weeks into spring. Always good to have a reminder to get up and do something. (That was a large percentage of the choices. "Gather ye rosebuds..." was also an option.)
10 feet, AABBCCDDEEFFGG. I think that's a sonnet?
I like the first verse the best. Some nice imagery or whatever, but the first one does well enough for the imagery and also gets the message across. "Above an hour since, yet you not drest;/Nay! not so much as out of bed?" Get off your phone and do stuff! 4/5
L: “Let us begin and carry up this corpse,” (A Grammarian’s Funeral) by Robert Browning (1855) Bonus: What if the grammarian just popped u...
