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Poetry post
Apr. 28th, 2009 10:34 amOne for the Sayers fans.
The Bells of Heaven
‘Twould ring the bells of Heaven
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs,
And he and they together
Knelt down with angry prayers
For tamed and shabby tigers,
And dancing dogs and bears,
And wretched, blind pit ponies,
And little hunted hares.
Ralph Hodgson
From an Anthology of Modern Verse, Methuen’s English Classics, 1921.
Shabby Tiger is also the name of a novel by Howard Spring, published in 1934. In this case the title is definitely not a reference to the poem, with the eponymous tiger being the artist protagonist, who decides to strike on his own rather than depend on his millionaire industrialist father, and beats even Philip Boyes for insufferable selfishness as being independent naturally involves exploiting everyone he can. This would be forgiveable in a novel (as it is in the character of Rachel Rosing, who gets her own sequel which I must read) were he an interesting man, but alas he is not. It was televised in 1973.
The Bells of Heaven
‘Twould ring the bells of Heaven
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs,
And he and they together
Knelt down with angry prayers
For tamed and shabby tigers,
And dancing dogs and bears,
And wretched, blind pit ponies,
And little hunted hares.
Ralph Hodgson
From an Anthology of Modern Verse, Methuen’s English Classics, 1921.
Shabby Tiger is also the name of a novel by Howard Spring, published in 1934. In this case the title is definitely not a reference to the poem, with the eponymous tiger being the artist protagonist, who decides to strike on his own rather than depend on his millionaire industrialist father, and beats even Philip Boyes for insufferable selfishness as being independent naturally involves exploiting everyone he can. This would be forgiveable in a novel (as it is in the character of Rachel Rosing, who gets her own sequel which I must read) were he an interesting man, but alas he is not. It was televised in 1973.