Professor Lord Asa Briggs is one of the most important historians of Britain. He is world-renowned for his work in social history, culture, and communications.
Professor Lord Asa Briggs is one of the most important historians of Britain. He is world-renowned for his work in social history, culture, and communications.
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Overview
Professor Lord Asa Briggs is one of the most important historians of Britain. He is world-renowned for his work in social history, culture, and communications.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780954207557 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Edward Everett Root |
| Publication date: | 06/06/2016 |
| Pages: | 172 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
He has also been a national and international leader in education, and in life-long learning.
Now in his nineties, he has been writing poetry since he was 13. But this is the first publication of this body of his literary work.
The book is an important cultural event. It will take its place amongst Lord Briggs’ other classic works, his five-volume history of the BBC, his trail-blazing The Age of Improvement 1783-1867, and his famous historical trilogy Victorian People, Victorian Cities, and Victorian Things.
The author, a vivid writer, also provides a “strictly necessary Introduction” in which he discusses his ideas about poetry and how and why he has written poetry over the years.
Asa Briggs has a very strong visual sense and an intuitive sense of place. In his work, too, he has always related literature to history. He is widely known as an effective and entertaining serious broadcaster, and his feeling for language is special.
The volume demonstrates Asa Briggs’ taste, intellectual discipline, technique and literary responses to the events and people he has known during his long life, and the challenges in his life. His style is his own, although he acknowledges his interest in the works of other poets including Matthew Arnold, John Betjeman, Robert Frost, Seamus Heaney, and Dylan Thomas.
He grew up, in a working-class family, in the West Riding town of Keighley, and at age 16 he won a scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
In his long career the author was a major influence on the development of new universities in Britain, and of education abroad too. He has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex, Master of Worcester College Oxford, and Chancellor of The Open University, of which he was one of the originators. He served as an intelligence officer at Bletchley Park during World War Two.
The poems particularly illustrate the significance of locality, of boundaries, of oral history, of the world of labour, and of the importance of language and of class. They also contemplate the particular in terms of the general. And the relationships between public and private events.
All of these elements have been an important focus for Asa Briggs and for his democratic approaches. His works, indeed, have implied the case for optimism in social progress. His life and works have greatly delineated and enriched democratic culture, together with his studies of the dynamics of economic and social change.
Read an Excerpt
The Collected Poems of Asa Briggs
Far Beyond The Pennine Way
By Asa Briggs
Edward Everett Root, Publishers, Co. Ltd.
Copyright © 2016 Asa BriggsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-9542075-5-7
CHAPTER 1
1. Dreaming of a return to Hangzhou, April 1989
I'll dream of Hangzhou
in a foreign land
through mist of distance and of time.
Now it is filled with the spirit of spring.
The waters flow,
the flowers bloom.
I will return,
this is a place where poets come and go.
2. The armies of Islam, December 1936
Pale is the crescent moon, gleaming in the star-lit sky,
Shining on the tents of Islam, on the golden plains below,
On the steeples of Vienna, and the night-hushed, silent streets,
On the armies of the conquering Poles, that fleetly, softly go
Through hamlets, and past rivers, till to Austria they draw nigh,
To save the timid Christian troops from further harsh defeats.
Pale is the crescent moon, gleaming in the star-lit sky,
On barren plains, where curling wisps of smoke wistfully rise,
While in Vienna, altars rich bedecked, cathedrals great re-echo,
And the sound of clanging bells rings out in joy, and slowly dies,
While a long and straggling army softly heaves a weary sigh,
And the angry, dark Sultan beats his breast in frenzied woe.
3. My Odyssey, August 2015
This is a sailor
gone to sea
travelling around from place to place,
aware always of his odyssey,
but knowing not
his destination
or when he'll reach it.
This traveller is me.
4. To all Grand Inquisitors
This house is my territory.
Do not invade it.
No rules dictate my movements,
I come and go just as I please.
I may invite you in from time to time,
but for most of the year
I seek to be quiet and alone.
I know the differences between near and far,
measuring them never in miles
but largely in feelings.
I've lived in many houses,
some big, some small:
I've always respected my neighbours,
but never exchanged ideas with them
and seldom information.
You've never been my neighbour.
and I am very well aware
of how you take on many names
in many countries.
Quite obstinately I stick to my own identity
wherever I may be,
whatever the places or the times.
However much I change my moods
I'll stick to the rhythm of my rhymes.
I care not in the least
for what you say.
5. Lake, mountain, wall
The sign above the temple reads Longevity
and here I pause.
It is a point in time when I feel free to contemplate.
Comings and goings, purposes and fate.
This is the place for lofty thoughts.
Beside the peach trees,
gazing across the lake
with all the world at rest.
No turbulence.
Soon, as I climb the mountain
I count each minute,
But never reach a heavenly gate.
I hear no ocean waves.
I must come down again
to stay securely on the plain.
6. On the Emperor of Abyssinia leaving his native land
An Emperor driv'n forth from his own land,
Heir to Solomon's throne - the King of Kings,
All Christendom with this injustice rings
A bloody crime, wrought by a villain's hand.
Crimson and gory will be stained Time's sand.
A noble ruler will to glory spring,
And bards throughout all time his praise will sing,
A race whose aim is justice, one great band.
O poets! O men! O gods! Hear ye his plea!
A poor, sad, broken monarch with proud name,
May they give back to him his rightful home!
He will live on in grandeur and in fame
And so indeed in glory shall live we
If we give back to him what is his own.
7. Guernica
A sonnet written in Keighley, where I got to know Basque
child refugees.
In frenzied rage, the savage Germans strike,
And ruin towns, where laughing children play,
Where aged warriors talk and women pray
That war may cease, and freedom's glorious light
Shine once again, undimmed, resplendent, bright
On homely joys and life passed day by day
In peaceful tasks. O may these tyrants pay
For slaughtering the just, forsaking right!
England, thou mother of the free, help thou this race
That sheds its blood, and cries aloud for aid!
Revenge the fatherless, and all those souls now dead!
Let us prepare for action; by God's grace
Even for war, so that it may never again be said
That England shrinks in cowardice, timid, afraid.
8. A sonnet written at Keighley, 1937
My dreams are shatter'd, and a weariness
Descends upon my being: long I gaze
On time dashed hopes, and all the maze
Of life - its love, its laughter and its dreariness:
One moment, stirr'd by transient happiness.
We sail in Fancy's ship, through halcyon days,
Quiet and seeming-endless till our ways
Grow troubl'd, and we sink to hopelessness.
Unfathomable as the sea is life.
Unsounded are its depths, untouched its heights,
And oft' we lose our hope amid its strife.
Nevertheless we find a glory shining bright
To guide us in our paths of dark despair,
And answer all our soul-beseeching pray'r.
9. After the storm: A school translation from Le Conte de Liste, 1936
The cool wind blows upon the waters, shining in the sun,
Which mounts and glimmers on them: a flock of birds sweeps the skies,
Rising up from the azure coast, where the horizon lies,
Pure, clear, where vessels float.
And yet within the seaweed at the edges of the isles,
Those birds shattered by the storm now turn their haggard eyes,
Sparkling, gleaming toward the ocean as she sleeping lies
Livid, bloody, beat down by waves and choked with sobs.
O Friend! your heart is fathomless, fathomless as that sea
Rolling its waves across the gold sand: for it has wept, it cries
Bitter as the depths, and hurled against flint and iron rocks it sighs
All one long day of bitter struggle, fearful hate.
Now, now it ebbs, it flows, it is appeased, and it abates again,
Without a fear, desire that beneath the sunlight fierce storm revives,
But weltering in foam and blood and war, in combat dies
Genius or love, hope, power or youth.
10. Thoughts on spending a holiday in the Lake District, 1935
The yellow sun shines down upon the laughing earth,
Upon the guardian mountains blue and tall,
Upon the shimmering lake that ripples gay,
From turret onto turret on each castle wall
Just as it did long since in Wordsworth's day,
Reflecting by-gone glories, and the mirth
Of that far-distant time. Still there remains a pow'r
That moves along these hedgerows and these lanes,
And worships still before these humble fanes,
Even in this impoverished dismal hour.
When now I wander on my peaceful walks,
Beside the hedges, linked with purple bloom
And pink convolvulus, climbing and fast entwined
I think of him, and then their pictures loom
Slowly but fixed in the precincts of my mind:
I think of all their discourse, all their pleasant talks.
The air is witching, and it conjures up once more
A young boy rowing on the glimmering expanse of a lake,
And how the towering mountains him did take,
And sent him frightened, awed back to the shore.
For nature was his only teacher all life through,
And these tall trees and fluttering birds him lessons gave,
And those moss-cover'd stones and breezy heights,
And all the majesty of the in-coming wave.
They gave him endless vistas and eternal sights
That sent him power in all he sought to do -
Work passed in contemplation and in quiet peace.
The Wordsworth of the revolution sighed no more,
He found his rest on stony crag and sandy shore,
Mid all-enduring nature, that can never cease.
For still the pale, white moon sends down her rays,
And the calm, steadfast stars do twinkle in the sky,
Still the white snow lies thick and crisp upon the ground
In winter, before the sunshine showers draw nigh,
And then the cuckoo "blithe newcomer" nowhere is found
Piping his notes, just as he piped in other days:
And then the summer with its flowers comes,
The dahlias burn their reds across the gardens' green,
And gold and crimson hollyhocks stand firm, serene,
While still the bright, winged insects hum.
And, in the autumn, when the changing leaves all die,
After the last corn harvest has been stor'd,
The dark November fogs descend, and wrap the vales:
Then winter comes, and Christmas with its festive hoard,
With games, with snow, with play... Then all the dales
Lie tranquil, and the earth is dead until spring draws nigh,
When "tossing their heads", the daffodils appear,
And cast their welcome rays of happiness around,
For happiness in dancing daffodils always abounds,
And ever will abound their jocund song of cheer.
And so proceeds, and will process, the quick course of the year,
And at all times, his spirit haunts the glen,
And climbs the misty slopes of Helvellyn, and sings
That all the world may listen to his songs again,
For just as nature liveth on long after kings,
So poets live on in splendour that the world may hear
Of true reality that lies below the common dross.
That did he find, and knew until old age,
And then bequeathed it as a lasting heritage,
Till now his free-born spirit never will be lost. ...
For he who lov'd the light of freedom and of liberty
Would grieve now if he saw the turmoil of this land,
And he would strive to remedy its many wrongs,
And he would cleanse the crimson blood from Europe's sand,
And make the world again, with everlasting songs,
This land, this continent, this earth - home of the free.
He, Wordsworth, with his insight could perceive
Why men do fail and empires slowly fade away,
While nature lives for ever in perpetual day.
'Tis good to think that while men pass away,
And die, and take back all the petty strife
And quarrels they have had, one greater still abides,
And he has triumph'd over all the storms of life,
And still upon the Lakeland cataracts he rides,
And will ride on till all the race of man has had its day,
For if at twilight, you do walk in awe again
Beside the quiet lakes, that human hands have left unspoilt.
He will be there with nature, nature that is unsoiled,
Unsoiled when mortal glories fade and wane.
11. Christmas 1939
Still trees and presents,
still Santa Claus and bulging stockings,
still carols and sacraments,
still yule-logs, cigars and trimmings;
but still no Christ, no God-birth yet,
only dim strivings,
hasty communions.
For in the merriment
beneath the mistletoe, we have not met
a Love that is strong enough
never to scorn pagan meridians.
12. My hometown in retrospect
Keighley had many boundary streets
that separated parts of the town,
and roads that led outside to villages around,
most with a church or chapel
and often many of the latter.
Why did this matter to me, a boy at school?
Because my school,
crossing all local boundaries,
pulled Keighley together as a town.
To get to school each day I climbed no hills,
the ground was level,
and yet I crossed over a railway bridge
with trains journeying below,
a few as far as Scotland.
The hills rose high above the centre of the town.
'Old as the hills' the Scriptures told me.
This was the language of both church and chapel,
of holy days and festivals,
Whit Monday was the most celebrated,
the festival of Sunday Schools.
Pentecost, only one language.
We later talked plainly.
Parish Feast, the local holiday in the summer.
Not everyone went away.
It had its games
and we in the Grammar School held speech days and
founders' days
inside the Parish Church, on those occasions pulling
together old and new Keighley,
with textile mills below their chimneys.
A post-Pentecostal language began to be spoken
against the noise of looms.
Times and rules and fires were imposed
provoking manifestoes with more than Biblical echoes.
After decades of strife and struggle
the mill owners changed.
It was a language that would change
and that was fortunate
for all of us.
13. An ode to poetry; from Leeds to Lewes, 1961
This weary modern life beats on our souls
Decays our inmost being, and destroys the substance
Of our lives, turning us to cold and frigid steel:
Yet we bow down to it with awe, and worship it.
We feel the crazy pangs of speed and we are thrilled;
We see the smoke burst forth from grimy chimneys overhead,
And we gaze on in silence: gone are our souls,
We are as dead.
Life is but one perpetual round, in which we seek
The dazzling phantom of material wealth,
And hunt the shadows of enslaving power.
Machines, they are our gods: we, like black slaves.
Have to obey their all-dictating rattle,
The burr of wheels, purring, rotating as an endless stream,
The sound of screeching brakes
And spouting steam.
Nevertheless we yet retain one of the glories of a former age,
And, 'mid the gloom and blackness of our lives,
Shine the gold rays, the brilliant rays of poetry:
There is light in our darkness, and our souls
Are bathed in its sweet splendour, till we leave
The giddy round behind, and flee from all the squalor,
To find reality beneath
Free from all horror.
All of us have our moments, when the poetry in our natures
Bursts forth from the strong, iron fetters of the world
And like the dawn-born lark, we soar in fancy
Above the mountains of our lives, and through the radiant skies.
We feel the joys of freedom, scanning the earth
Like some mysterious planet...
Forever bathed in blackest night.
We live in day.
14. Runways and highways
Runways are straight
And you are bidden
To look toward to the skies,
Clouded or blue.
The future that we hope to make
Starts in the memory,
And as we contemplate our fate
It seems that you knew before
The secret of today:
A leader dead.
What lies ahead
We must create.
15. River, cave, runway
For KK in a February week 1997
All rivers bend,
Opening new landscapes,
Caught in the sun or lost in mist.
Sadly we watched without you on our river
Till what was hidden was revealed.
Still more was out of sight Centuries ago
When these strange hills
Were buried underneath the sea.
There were no footprints then,
No twists of human history
Time has moved slowly
Within the cave.
A millenarian centipede
Flees from the mirror
Yet there were men here
Whom we might have known In hiding.
War drove them into darkness.
Now there is light:
The brightest colours gleam.
We search in them for hidden meanings.
And yet I deeply regret I cannot share your take-off
Into the skies.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Collected Poems of Asa Briggs by Asa Briggs. Copyright © 2016 Asa Briggs. Excerpted by permission of Edward Everett Root, Publishers, Co. Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
A strictly necessary introduction, xi,List of illustrations, xxi,
100 Poems,
1. Dreaming of a return to Hangzhou, April 1989, 1,
2. The armies of Islam, December 1936, 2,
3. My Odyssey, August 2015, 3,
4. To all Grand Inquisitors, 4,
5. Lake, mountain, wall, 6,
6. On the Emperor of Abyssinia leaving his native land, 7,
7. Guernica, 9,
8. A sonnet written at Keighley, 1937, 10,
9. After the storm: A school translation from Le Conte de Liste, 1936, 11,
10. Thoughts on spending a holiday in the Lake District, 1935, 13,
11. Christmas 1939, 18,
12. My hometown in retrospect, 19,
13. An ode to poetry; from Leeds to Lewes, 1961, 21,
14. Runways and highways, 23,
15. River, cave, runway, 24,
16. In Li Jiang, 26,
17. On the Road from Hong Kong to China. Near the border at Lukkeng, 1994, 27,
18. Also at Lukkeng, 28,
19. Renaming, 29,
20. The lament of an old cormorant forced far too long to play tricks (the average life span of a cormorant has now fallen from 25 to 18), 30,
21. Drums beat, 31,
22. For Marjorie, 32,
23. Our house in Boundary Street, Winchelsea, 34,
24. I dream of houses, 36,
25. Home thoughts from abroad, Madeira, May 8th 1998, 38,
26. The words I speak when half asleep, 39,
27. The gamble, 40,
28. A Bletchley sonnet, 42,
29. After dreaming of myself in a baggage queue, 43,
30. Pathways with Susan, 1984, 44,
31. Sailing, 45,
32. Double jeopardy, Portugal, 46,
33. A version of the Sacrament, 47,
34. Squaring the circle, 49,
35. Reptiles from Montana, for our great grandchildren, 51,
36. Giant and girl, 53,
37. Curiosity killed the cat, 54,
38. Meditating in Portugal, 1999, 57,
39. A second poem, Santa Barbara, February 29th 2001, 58,
40. Chinese meditations, Beijing 2000, 59,
41. Listening to bells, 60,
42. Ballad sans Betjeman, 2006, 62,
43. Fame: written at Bletchley, 1944, 63,
44. Belgian ballades, 64,
45. A Portuguese lyric: written in a library, 66,
46. Lines written at Bletchley, 1944, 67,
47. Ten minutes from Shanghai, 68,
48. A Shanghai sonnet, 77,
49. On the number of dictatorships in modern Europe, 78,
50. On reaching Villareal, Portugal, 79,
51. Thought for the day, written in bed at 7.50 am, in Portugal, February 19th 2001, after a storm has disturbed our satellite dish, 80,
52. Lines written in Hong Kong's New Territory, near to the Chinese frontier, 81,
53. Strange shapes, written at sea, November 2009, 82,
54. Sailing by but never landing, 2009, 84,
55. I do not know which stone is ours today, September 1st 1999, 86,
56. My own true Love, December 27th 2012, 87,
57. A Beijing sonnet, 88,
58. This sporting life, 2013, 89,
59. The city of Silves, Portugal, 91,
60. A sonnet to Bartok, the musician, 92,
61. The moon's first love, 93,
62. On hearing the cuckoo for the first time this year, 94,
63. The little charioteer - a narrative, 1935, 95,
64. Nighttime in daytime, 98,
65. Ready for a flood, 100,
66. On the near conjunction of the harvest moon and National Day, 2004, 101,
67. Pathetic fallacies, Lewes, May 11th 2001, 102,
68. Remembering more of Keighley and of Yorkshire, 104,
69. For Susan: Not an incident, December 27th 1996, 107,
70. I study every face, July 14th 2004, 108,
71. 1 September 2000, 109,
72. It is 10:15 and dark, 110,
73. Journey from Shanghai, 112,
74. Lament of Qu Yan for an emperor and a country in anticipation of Wuhan, September 21st 1985, 113,
75. Our wedding anniversary 2006, 114,
76. Lines for my Valentine, 115,
77. Lines written in Portugal, March 1997, 116,
78. On a wedding anniversary, 117,
79. Leaving Recife by sea, January 16th 2006 at 5.55 pm, 118,
80. Love and deceit, 119,
81. For Susan on our 57th wedding anniversary, September 1st 2012, 120,
82. Crows croak, 122,
83. Double security, 123,
84. En-route from Yi-Chang gorges, 124,
85. 1066 and all that: To Yeatman from an old and new historian, 125,
86. A forecast, 127,
87. A poetry audit, 128,
88. I want to buy a tombstone, 129,
89. A sudden gale, 130,
90. A thought from Xian, 131,
91. On going to America, 132,
92. At Alte, 133,
93. Not far from home, a cruellish month, 134,
94. Inside my Lewes house, 136,
95. On seeing the new moon through glass, Santa Barbara, April 13th 2008, 137,
96. I planned my book on books, August 12th 2015, 139,
97. Final meditations? Seaford, August 12th 2015, 141,
98. Our diamond wedding day, September 1st 2015, 145,
99. There will be no new dates for me, 147,
100. Time and names rearranged at 3.30 pm, Wednesday September 4th 2015, 149,
Acknowledgements, 151,