Aubade – Louis MacNeice

Having bitten on life like a sharp apple 
Or, playing it like a fish, been happy, 

Having felt with fingers that the sky is blue, 
What have we after that to look forward to?

Not the twilight of the gods but a precise dawn 
of sallow and grey bricks, and newsboys crying war.

by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963)

#Aubade #LouisMacNeice #Poem #Poetry

"Good-bye now, Plato and Hegel,
The shop is closing down; They don’t want any philosopher-kings in England, There ain’t no universals in this man’s town."

Louis MacNeice, Autumn Journal (1939)

https://ia801509.us.archive.org/7/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.184237/2015.184237.Autumn-Journal_text.pdf (pdf)

#InternetArchive #LouisMacNeice #Classics #Poetry

One for you this evening

(as mentioned in The Book of Beginnings by Sally Page (and published, here, in the Guardian))

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/nov/21/poem-of-the-week-meeting-point-by-louis-macneice

#MeetingPoint #LouisMacNeice #poem #poetry

I did an episode of #StoriesOfIceland about the weird travel book Letters from Iceland written by #WHAuden and #LouisMacNeice.

I don't remember if I related an anecdote I once heard about how many Icelanders were impressed by how gentlemanly Auden and MacNeice were because they never tried to seduce any #Icelandic women during their trip.

#Reading finished. This took less time than some of the more worthy books I'm reading!! But good to have escapism ( even if tinged with sadness) #AfterYou #jojomoyes 📖

I also finished #AutumnJournal by #louismacneice which was both good, but hard going, however, I think I want to read it each autumn, until I unravel the threads #relationship #war #work #location #autumn #classics #life 🍁

I need to finish the Chinese autobiography before the end of the year #targets

Following on from yesterday, I should say that buying random #postcards isn't a new thing for me. I've always loved postcards #collecting and was excited when I found you could narrow your search for old things ( online) rather than sorting through boxes at fairs/ charity shops. However these Dutch Happy Birthday cards were a bulk buy in a second hand bookshop, and I'm currently using them as #bookmarks - #autumn flowers for #louismacneice more random for Korean book - mostly posted not new.

fingers killing time

Louis MacNeice, ‘The heated minutes’ #poetry #louismacneice