Dancing by the Light of the Moon Read online

Christopher Robin 169

  Come live with me, and be my love 242

  Dear Mama 309

  Dearest, the cockroaches are having babies 313

  Death is nothing at all 362

  Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee 357

  Do not go gentle into that good night 371

  Do you remember an Inn, Miranda? 41

  Early morning over Rouen, hopeful, high, courageous morning 198

  Earth has not anything to show more fair 89

  Edward the Confessor 67

  Einstein born 19

  Everyday I think about dying 70

  Everyone suddenly burst out singing 197

  Everything passes and vanishes 360

  Ewe bleateth after lamb 62

  Father heard his children scream 65

  For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday 355

  Forget the long, smouldering afternoon 44

  Forty boys on benches with their quills 87

  From across the lake 66

  From quiet homes and first beginning 257

  From time to time our love is like a sail 102

  George the Third 68

  Glory be to God for dappled things 281

  Go and open the door 240

  Good-night; ensured release 366

  Gran was in her chair she was taking a nap 312

  Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck 137

  Had we but world enough, and time 244

  Haikus are easy 67

  Half a league, half a league 194

  Hand on the bridge 37

  Happy the man, and happy he alone 414

  Happy those early days! 407

  He sipped at a weak hock and seltzer 288

  Her father loved me, oft invited me 161

  Here dead lie we because we did not choose 196

  Hip bath, hip bath 259

  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways 93

  How many seconds in a minute? 403

  How pleasant to know Mr Lear! 16

  How should I not be glad to contemplate 420

  I am having a rapprochement with galoshes 206

  I am spending my time imagining the worst that could happen 191

  I am the Smoke King 282

  I caught this morning morning’s minion 95

  I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun 360

  I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind 98

  I have eaten 76

  I have never walked on Westminster Bridge 90

  I leant upon a coppice gate 225

  I long to hold some lady 190

  I made hay while the sun shone 209

  I met a traveller from an antique land 91

  I must go down to the sea again 70

  I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky 394

  I quarreled with my brother 177

  I remember … 315

  I remember, I remember 27

  I saw Len Hutton in his prime 71

  I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed 141

  I stood upon a high place 76

  i thank You God for most this amazing 416

  I think that I shall never see 78

  I used to think nurses 80

  I wandered lonely as a Cloud 51

  I was welcomed here – clear gold 221

  I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree 410

  I will put in my box 408

  I’d like to be a teabag 121

  I’m a maiden who is forty 346

  I’m glad at last we’re going to do this film 148

  I’m in love, I’m in love! 189

  I’m nobody! Who are you? 75

  I’ve got you under my skin 249

  If I can stop one heart from breaking 75

  If I should die, think only this of me 202

  If I should go before the rest of you 370

  If I were doing my Laundry I’d wash my dirty Iran 298

  If you can keep your head when all about you 392

  In moving-slow he has no Peer 136

  In the drinking-well 65

  In the grey summer garden I shall find you 367

  In the Land of the Bumbley Boo 118

  In the twilight rain 65

  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 320

  In youth I dreamed, as other youths have dreamt 401

  ‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller 284

  It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day 181

  It is midnight in the ice-rink 119

  It was a dream I had last week 70

  It was Christmas Day in the workhouse 231

  It was many and many a year ago 399

  It’s no go the merrygoround, it’s no go the rickshaw 113

  James James 337

  Jenny kissed me when we met 73

  John Stuart Mill 68

  Just one sonetto 81

  Lady, lady, should you meet 185

  Lana Turner has collapsed! 349

  Late August, given heavy rain and sun 222

  Let me die a youngman’s death 374

  Let me not to the marriage of true minds 84

  little tree 227

  loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself 80

  Lord Byron 68

  Lord Lundy from his earliest years 327

  Love set you going like a fat gold watch 165

  Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest 278

  Loveliest of trees, the cherry now 220

  Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw 133

  Matilda told such Dreadful Lies 330

  Methinks I am a prophet new inspired 153

  Mick Jagger a– 69

  Miranda was the nicest child 336

  Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn 186

  Much to his Mum and Dad’s dismay 122

  Music, when soft voices die 358

  My candle burns at both ends 79

  My love you have stumbled slowly 372

  My luve is like a red, red rose 246

  Night; and once again 66

  No man is an island 73

  Nobody heard him, the dead man 404

  Not only the leaf shivering with delight 252

  notice how they have perfect steering 306

  Now when the number of my years 363

  Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit 30

  Of pygmies, palms and pirates 117

  Oh 61

  Oh, to be in England 219

  Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth 99

  Once a fellow met a fellow 259

  One fine day in the middle of the night 105

  One, two, buckle my shoe 35

  Oscar Wilde 68

  Our revels now are ended 164

  Out of the night that covers me 388

  Phone for the fish-knives, Norman 290

  Please Mrs Butler 175

  Please, darling, no more diets 238

  poetry readings have to be some of the saddest 296

  Poetry? It’s a hobby 204

  Polish the silverware, dust off the telly screen 316

  Remember me when I am gone away 94

  Remember, the time of year 218

  Robert de Niro 69

  Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness 223

  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 86

  She walks in beauty, like the night 380

  She’s here at Opening Time each day 342

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot 216

  Sir Christopher Wren 67

  Sir Henry Rider Haggard 68

  Sir Humphrey Davy 67

  So far, so good 7

  Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone 369

  Such love I cannot analyse 256

  Sundays too my father got up early 205

  sunken yachtsmen 307

  Sunset and evening star 359

  Take some Picts, Celts and Silures 411

  The bed we loved in was a
spinning world 100

  The boy stood on the burning deck 265

  The boy was barely five years old 188

  The cow who jumped over the moon remarked 115

  The days are short 406

  The first surprise: I like it 419

  The good are vulnerable 373

  The grey sea and the long black land 247

  The Herring is a lucky fish 69

  The horses line up 302

  The King asked 171

  The limerick is furtive and mean 64

  The most important thing we’ve learned 291

  The optimist builds himself safe inside a cell 77

  The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea 1

  The phantom lollipop lady 350

  The Pobble who has no toes 106

  The quality of mercy is not strained 155

  The seasons mend their ruin as they go 96

  The Secret Garden will never age 212

  The silver swan, who living had no note 410

  The snail pushes through a green 140

  The sun was shining on the sea 270

  The upland flocks grew starved and thinned 129

  The was an Old Person of Ewell 63

  The whiskey on your breath 179

  The year’s at the spring 74

  There is a kind of love called maintenance 251

  There is a young lady whose nose 63

  There is nothing more perky

  There was an Old Man in a boat 63

  There was an old person of Dean 63

  There was an Old Person of Ischia 63

  There were never strawberries 250

  There’s a breathless hush in the Close to-night 396

  There’s a doughty little Island in the ocean 261

  There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool 332

  There’s an indescribable beauty in union 253

  There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium 235

  They don’t publish the good news 417

  They fuck you up, your mum and dad 393

  They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace 210

  Things that go bump in the night 69

  Thirty days hath September 233

  This day is called the feast of Crispian 156

  This is as close as I’ll ever be to a butterfly 143

  This is the Night Mail crossing the Border 377

  This is the tale of Sonia Snell 344

  This morning I’ve got too much energy 305

  Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels 48

  Through the open French window the warm sun 415

  Timothy Winters comes to school 347

  To be, or not to be, that is the question 159

  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose 214

  To keep your marriage brimming 239

  To lose two pounds a week 237

  To set my brother Clarence and the King 152

  To-con-vey one’s mood 67

  Today is very boring 176

  Tread lightly, she is near 365

  ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 108

  ‘Twas on a lofty vase’s side 126

  ’Twas on the shores that round our coast 274

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood 386

  Tyger Tyger, burning bright 128

  Vincent Malloy is seven years old 351

  Was I? 26

  We sleep together, close and warm 255

  What are days for? 417

  What do cats remember of days? 142

  What is that blood-stained thing 71

  What is this life if, full of care 383

  What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why 97

  What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? 201

  Whatever the difference is, it all began 101

  When fishes flew and forests walked 131

  When I am an old woman I shall wear purple 390

  When I am dead, my dearest 361

  When I consider how my light is spent 88

  When I have fears, as Keats had fears 368

  When I was sick and lay a-bed 167

  When in trouble, when in doubt 424

  When we two parted 183

  When you are old and grey and full of sleep 208

  When you stop to consider 79

  When you walk through a storm 367

  Whenever Richard Cory went down town 326

  Where am I now when I need me 209

  Where is the Jim Crow section 178

  Whose woods these are I think I know 226

  Why not take a poem 58

  Wild nights! Wild nights! 248

  Willy, Willy, Harry, Ste 234

  Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night 111

  Yes. I remember Adlestrop 405

  ‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said 33

  You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water 7

  You may talk o’ gin and beer 323

  You! 61

  Your Daddy is a soldier son 193

  THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

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  PENGUIN BOOKS

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  Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  First published 2019

  Copyright © Gyles Brandreth, 2019

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Cover illustration by Piers Sanford

  ISBN: 978-0-241-39793-0

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Chapter One: How I Got into This

  1 It’s too much of a mouthful. If I was starting over again, I’d make it something simpler, like ‘Gyles Brown’ or ‘Ben Brandreth’. The Gyles with a y was my father’s idea. (If I had been a girl I would have been called ‘Mercedes’. A Mercedes is what he really wanted.) Gyles with a y is a bit fey, but it’s different and I quite like that. Please think of me as ‘Gyles’. It’s only five letters and that’s good. According to the poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde, to live in the public memory you need a name of just five letters – like Oscar or Wilde, or Jesus or Plato, or, as he pointed out when he was in New York and visiting the world’s most famous elephant at P. T. Barnum’s celebrated circus: Jumbo.

  2 And for footnotes.

  3 At this point, my publisher reminds me that a gushing admirer once approached the great James Joyce in Zurich and asked, ‘May I shake the hand that wrote Ulysses?’ Joyce closed his eyes for a moment before replying, famously: ‘No, it’s done other things as well.’

  4 The team captains were the comedian Cyril Fletcher, one of whose celebrated ‘Odd Odes’ appears on page 344, and the poet and eccentric, Caryl Brahms, who wrote a series of brilliant comic novels with S. J. Simon. (I reckon No Bed for Bacon is the one to start with.)

  5 They aren’t. ‘Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out afte
r dark, up to no good.’ P. G. Wodehouse.

  Chapter Two: Thanks for the Memory

  1 There really isn’t. Something does rhyme with ‘purple’, however, and that’s ‘hirple’, an old English word meaning ‘to walk with a limp’. How do I know that? My friend, the lexicographer, Susie Dent, told me. We do a podcast together and call it Something Rhymes with Purple. It was from Susie that I also learnt that the ‘black box’ flight recorder on aircraft is actually orange. Life is full of surprises.

  2 I asked Google to give me Milton’s dates just now, and up popped the dates for the forthcoming tour of my friend, Milton Jones – the comedian whose gems include my favourite line about his wife: ‘It’s difficult to say what she does … She sells seashells on the seashore.’

  3 If you and your baby want to help them with their research, you can find out more here: www.cnebabylab.psychol.cam.ac.uk.

  Chapter Three: How Do You Learn a Poem by Heart?

  1 The thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is all above love. In the original Greek, the word ἀγάπη (agape) is used throughout. This was translated into English as ‘charity’ in the 1604–11 King James Version, but the word ‘love’ is preferred by most other translations and the version here is the one that was read by Tony Blair and the one I would recommend to learn by heart.

  Chapter Five: On Westminster Bridge

  1 A number of great poets have been MPs, among them four of my favourites: Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343–1400), John Donne (1572–1631), George Herbert (1593–1633) and Andrew Marvell (1621–78). Chaucer does not feature in this book, simply because he is difficult to learn by heart without mastering the pronunciation of Middle English. There are some good readings of Chaucer readily available on YouTube to give you a flavour of how he sounds: keep listening, and quite quickly your ear adjusts and you get the gist of what he’s saying.

  2 This poem is also known as ‘On His Blindness’. Milton’s eyesight declined over several years, probably as the result of untreated glaucoma. By 1652, he was completely blind. His first published poem was ‘On Shakespeare’ (1630); his most famous, Paradise Lost (1667). A Puritan and a passionate Christian, the ‘one talent which is death to hide’ in this Petrarchan sonnet refers to the parable of the talents in St Matthew’s Gospel.

  3 François Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743–1803) was a Haitian revolutionary who was imprisoned by the French and whose plight caught the imagination of radical Romantics like the Cumbrian poet, William Wordsworth, who wrote a sonnet in L’Ouverture’s praise not long before he died in French captivity in 1803. Two hundred years later, John Agard, poet and playwright of Afro-Guyanese heritage, wrote this sonnet in praise of Wordsworth.