The Nation’s Favourite Poems
This is an audio book. I got it to
listen to in the car. I can hardly read poetry while driving.
“The Nation’s Favourite Poems”
are not necessarily the intellectuals’ favourite poems. For
example, I have heard criticisms of the nation’s favourite poem,
“If” by Rudyard Kipling that it is “of its time” and dated in
its outlook.
Of course it is. It was written in
1895 and Kipling was a supporter of the British Empire.
The “manly virtues” in the poem
are not conventional, they could have equally applied to a daughter.
It is a poem for a son, written by a
father and indeed my father used to recite it to me. It was the best
part of my day.
There are parts of this poem which
have been relevant throughout my life and probably yours too.
I take one example.
“If you can bear to hear the truth
you’ve spoken,
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for
fools.”
If you have never felt this in your
lifetime, you have been exceptionally lucky!
People do distort what you say.
Sometimes this is quite unintentional but some are indeed knaves and
they are making a trap. Those who walk into the trap could be called
fools if you are feeling uncharitable.
The poem is all one long sentence. The
ending is hardly a surprise but it does round off all of the
subordinate clauses quite nicely.
“Yours is the earth and everything
that’s in it.
And, which is more, you’ll be a man,
my son.”
Perhaps the intellectuals need to
learn from the hoi polloi!
