Charles Causley
Aug. 25th, 2017 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloAilz: What is this book you've just bought?
Me: The Collected Poems of Charles Causley
Ailz: Is he alive or dead?
Me: Dead.
Ailz (playing on my taste for channelled writings) Did he write them before or after?
Shewhomust brought it to my attention that- had he hung around for a few more years- Causley would have been celebrating his 100th birthday yesterday. I remembered how much I liked him and went looking for his work online. His Ballad for Katherine of Aragon brought tears to my eyes.
The Queen of Castile has a daughter
Who won't come home again
She lies in the grey cathedral
Under the arms of Spain.
O the Queen of Castile has a daughter
Torn out by the roots.
Her lovely breast in a stone cold chest
Under the farmers' boots.
There's something about the ballad form that predisposes my skin to prickle and my eyes to fill but even allowing for this weakness I don't believe there's any post-war English poem that moves me more- unless it's something else of Causley's.
I bought one of his collections in the late 60s and somehow never added to it. Well, that's rectified now.
Me: The Collected Poems of Charles Causley
Ailz: Is he alive or dead?
Me: Dead.
Ailz (playing on my taste for channelled writings) Did he write them before or after?
Shewhomust brought it to my attention that- had he hung around for a few more years- Causley would have been celebrating his 100th birthday yesterday. I remembered how much I liked him and went looking for his work online. His Ballad for Katherine of Aragon brought tears to my eyes.
The Queen of Castile has a daughter
Who won't come home again
She lies in the grey cathedral
Under the arms of Spain.
O the Queen of Castile has a daughter
Torn out by the roots.
Her lovely breast in a stone cold chest
Under the farmers' boots.
There's something about the ballad form that predisposes my skin to prickle and my eyes to fill but even allowing for this weakness I don't believe there's any post-war English poem that moves me more- unless it's something else of Causley's.
I bought one of his collections in the late 60s and somehow never added to it. Well, that's rectified now.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-25 06:04 pm (UTC)