• Repetition

    11 hads

    Peter where John had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had more marks from the examiner.

    21 ands

    Wouldn’t the sentence “I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign” have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

  • Philip Larkin

    The Trees

    The trees are coming into leaf,
    Like something almost being said;
    The recent buds relax and spread,
    Their greenness is a kind of grief.

    Is it that they are born again,
    And we grow old? No, they die too,
    Their yearly trick of looking new
    Is written down in rings of grain.

    Yet still the unresting castles thresh
    In fullgrown thickness every May.
    Last year is dead, they seem to say
    Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

  • Eugene Fitch Ware

    He & She

    When I am dead you’ll find it hard,
    Said he,
    To ever find another man
    Like me,

    What makes you think, as I suppose
    You do,
    I’d ever want another man
    Like you?

  • Lord Byron

    There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
    there is rapture in the lonely shore,
    there is society where none intrudes,
    by the deep sea, and music in its roar;
    I love not man the less, but nature more.

  • Tu Fu

    Loneliness

    A hawk hovers in the air.
    Two white gulls float on the stream.
    Soaring with the wind, it is easy
    To drop and seize
    Birds who foolishly drift with the current.
    Where the dew sparkles in the grass,
    The spider’s web waits for its prey.
    The processes of nature resemble the business of men.
    I stand alone with ten thousand sorrows.

  • Anthony Burgess

    His dentist had once told him that he was one of the lucky few whose teeth would outlive him; he would have preferred his work to, but you can’t have everything.

  • Thomas Ford

    There is a Lady Sweet and Kind

    There is a lady sweet and kind,
    Was never a face so pleased my mind;
    I did but see her passing by,
    And yet I’ll love her till I die.

    Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
    Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
    Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
    And yet I’ll love her till I die.

    Cupid is winged and he doth range,
    Her country, so, my love doth change:
    But change she earth, or change she sky,
    Yet, I will love her till I die.

  • A. E. Housman

    Loveliest of Trees

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
    Is hung with bloom along the bough,
    And stands about the woodland ride
    Wearing white for Eastertide.

    Now, of my threescore years and ten,
    Twenty will not come again,
    And take from seventy springs a score,
    It only leaves me fifty more.

    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,
    About the woodlands I will go
    To see the cherry hung with snow.

  • John Donne

    Good-Friday 1613, Riding Westward

    Let man’s soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
    Th’ intelligence that moves, devotion is ;
    And as the other spheres, by being grown
    Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
    And being by others hurried every day,
    Scarce in a year their natural form obey ;
    Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
    For their first mover, and are whirl’d by it.
    Hence is’t, that I am carried towards the west,
    This day, when my soul’s form bends to the East.
    There I should see a Sun by rising set,
    And by that setting endless day beget.
    But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
    Sin had eternally benighted all.
    Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
    That spectacle of too much weight for me.
    Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die ;
    What a death were it then to see God die ?
    It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
    It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
    Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
    And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes ?
    Could I behold that endless height, which is
    Zenith to us and our antipodes,
    Humbled below us ? or that blood, which is
    The seat of all our soul’s, if not of His,
    Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
    By God for His apparel, ragg’d and torn ?
    If on these things I durst not look, durst I
    On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
    Who was God’s partner here, and furnish’d thus
    Half of that sacrifice which ransom’d us ?
    Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
    They’re present yet unto my memory,
    For that looks towards them ; and Thou look’st towards me,
    O Saviour, as Thou hang’st upon the tree.
    I turn my back to thee but to receive
    Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
    O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
    Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
    Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
    That Thou mayst know me, and I’ll turn my face.

  • George McDonald

    An Epitaph

    Here lie I Martin Elginbrodde.
    Have mercy on my soul Lord God
    As I would do were I Lord God
    And ye were Martin Elginbrodde

  • Henry Reed

    Naming of Parts

    To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
    We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
    We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
    To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
    Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
    And to-day we have naming of parts.

    This is the lower sling swivel. And this
    Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
    When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
    Which in your case you have not got. The branches
    Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
    Which in our case we have not got.

    This is the safety-catch, which is always released
    With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
    See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
    If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
    Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
    Any of them using their finger.

    And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
    Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
    Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
    Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
    The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
    They call it easing the Spring.

    They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
    If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
    And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
    Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
    Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
    For to-day we have naming of parts.

    Hear Henry Reed (2nd voice) and Frank Duncan read “Naming of Parts” here

  • Wendy Cope

    Magnetic

    I spell it out on this fridge door
    you are so wonderful
    I even like th way you snor

  • Pablo Picasso

    Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.

  • Hilaire Belloc

    The Early Morning

    The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
    The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
    The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
    My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.

  • William Carlos Williams

    This Is Just to Say

    I have eaten
    the plums
    that were in
    the icebox

    and which
    you were probably
    saving
    for breakfast

    Forgive me
    they were delicious
    so sweet
    and so cold