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16 May 06 - 08:18 PM (#1742199) Subject: Lyr Add: THE OLD GREY SQUIRREL (Alfred Noyes) From: Charley Noble I've heard this Alfred Noyes poem song by both Tom Lewis and Bob Zentz and it strikes a familiar and disquieting chord. Zentz adapted the poem for singing and Lewis has recorded it on MIXED CARGO, ©1999: THE OLD GREY SQUIRREL (By Alfred Noyes) A great while ago there was a schoolboy who lived in a cottage by the sea, And the very first thing he could remember was the rigging of the schooners by the quay. He could watch 'em from his bedroom window with the big cranes a-hauling out the freight, And he used to dream of shipping as a sea-cook and a-sailing for the Golden Gate. He used to buy the yellow penny dreadfuls, he'd read 'em where he fished for conger eels, As he listened to the slapping of the water the green and oily water round the keels, There were trawlers with their shark-mouthed flatfish and the nets a-hanging out to dry, And the skate the skipper kept because he liked 'em and the landsmen never knew which ones to fry. There were brigantines with timber out of Norway just oozing with the syrups of the pine, There were rusty dusty freighters out of Sunderland and clippers of the Blue Cross Line. To tumble down the hatch into a cabin was better than the best of broken rules, For the smell of 'em was like a Christmas dinner and the feel of 'em was like a box of tools, And before he went to sleep in the evenings the last thing that he would ever see, Was the sailormen a-dancing in the moonlight by the capstan that stood beside the quay. Now he's sitting on a high-stool in London, the Golden Gate is far away, For the caught him like a squirrel and they caged him, now he's totting up accounts and turning grey, And he'll never get to San Francisco and the last thing that he will ever see, Is the sailormen a-dancing in the moonlight by the capstan that stands beside the quay. To the tune of the old concertina by the capstan that stands beside the quay. There is a sequel to this poem called "THE ESCAPE OF OLD GREY SQUIRREL" by Noyes. So even the poet couldn't stand the utter despair of the original, but that's what makes the poem! Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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17 May 06 - 04:24 PM (#1742597) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Grey Squirrel, The From: EBarnacle Charley, I just did a search for the escape poem and could not find it. Would you please post it. thanx |
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17 May 06 - 10:34 PM (#1742841) Subject: Lyr Add: ESCAPE OF OLD GREY SQUIRREL (Alfred Noyes From: Charley Noble Eric- Say "please!" Oh, you did. Here it is, weird thing and a bit long in the tooth: THE ESCAPE OF OLD GREY SQUIRREL (By Alfred Noyes, and seems to be a sort of sequel to Noyes' other poem, which is called "Old Grey Squirrel") Old Grey Squirrel might have been Almost anything - Might have been a soldier, sailor, Tinker, tailor (Never a beggar-man, though, nor thief). Might have been, perhaps, a king, Or an Indian chief. He remained a City clerk Doubled on a great high stool, Totting up, from dawn to dark, Figures, figures, figures, figures, Red ink, black ink, double rule, Tot-tot-totting with his pen, Up and down and round again - Curious Old Grey Squirrel. No one ever really knew What he did at night, In his room so near the roof, Up those steep and narrow stairs. Old Grey Squirrel wasn't quite The same as other men. What he said was always true; He was like a little child In a thousand things. Something shy and delicate, Cold and grave and undefiled, Seemed to keep him quite aloof. You could never call him lonely, Though he lived with memory there. When he knelt beside his bed He had nothing much to say But the simplest little prayer Learned in childhood, long ago, And he didn't know or care Whether Calvinists might call it Praying for the dead. Father, mother, sister, brother - Memories clear as evening bells; Yes, the very sort of thing All your clever little scribblers Love to satirize and sting, So let's talk of something else. He collected stamps, you know, Commonplace Old Squirrel. Ah, but could you see him there, When the day's grey work was done, Poring over his new stamps With that wise old air; Looking up the curious places In his tattered atlas, too Lands of jungle and of sun, Ivory tusks and dusky faces, Whence his latest treasure flew Like a tropic moth, he thought, To flutter round his dying lamp. . . . Visions are not bought and sold; But, when the foreign mail came in Bringing his employers news Of copper, sulphide, zinc and tin (And the red resultant gold), Envelopes were thrown away, So, of course, one clearly sees He could pick, and he could choose, Having, as he used to say, "Very great advantages." Rarities could not be bought. Bus fares don't leave much for spending On a flight to Zipangu. All the same, one never knew. All things come to those who wait - Isles of palm in rose and blue, India, China and Peru, And the Golden Gate. So he'd turn his treasures over- Mauve and crimson, buff and cream- Every stamp an elfin window Opening on a boy's lost dream. "Curious, curious, that's Jamaica, That's Hong Kong (the twopenny red), I've no doubt they are well worth seeing, Well worth seeing," Old Squirrel said. "Curious" - curious was his word - Old Grey Squirrel remembered a day Sitting alone in a whispering fir-wood (This was in boyhood before they caught him) Writing a story of far Cathay, A tale that his friends would think absurd But would make him famous when he was dead. "Curious" - thinking of all those years, All those dreams that had drifted away - Once, he had thought - but the years had taught him, Taught him better, and bowed his head. "Curious" - memory clings and lingers - Clings - the smell of the fir wood - clings . . . Through his wrinkled ink-stained fingers, "Curious, curious," trickled the tears, Curious Old Grey Squirrel. No, you'd hardly call it weeping. Old Grey Squirrel could not weep. Head on arm, he might have been Sleeping; but he did not know. Most of us are sound asleep; And, that Christmas Eve, it seems, He awoke, at last, from dreams. Gently, as a woman's hand Something touched him on the brow, And he woke, in that strange land - Where he lives for ever now. All things come to those who wait - Palms against a deeper blue, Far Cathay and Zipangu, And the Golden Gate. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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17 May 06 - 10:43 PM (#1742845) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Grey Squirrel, The From: Q (Frank Staplin) Thanks for posting these. Somewhere I have a book of his poems, but I don't remember that any were as interesting as these. |
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18 May 06 - 11:09 AM (#1743182) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Grey Squirrel, The (Alfred Noyes) From: EBarnacle Thanks, Charley. As you say, the poem is a sort of downer. I was hoping for a physical escape, not an escape from the physical. Sort of a precurser to Eleanor Rigby. |