{"id":170064,"date":"2023-02-02T06:00:27","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/?p=170064"},"modified":"2023-02-02T13:35:28","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T19:35:28","slug":"sheep-and-peacocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/sheep-and-peacocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheep and Peacocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the second of February bloggers traditionally post a favorite poem, though apparently I’m the only one who still does that. Here’s one from Thomas Love Peacock’s 1829 novel The Misfortunes of Elphin<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The War-Song of Dinas Vawr<\/h3>\n

By Thomas Love Peacock<\/p>\n

The mountain sheep are sweeter,
\nBut the valley sheep are fatter;
\nWe therefore deemed it meeter
\nTo carry off the latter.
\nWe made an expedition;
\nWe met a host, and quelled it;
\nWe forced a strong position,
\nAnd killed the men who held it.<\/p>\n

On Dyfed’s richest valley,
\nWhere herds of kine were browsing,
\nWe made a mighty sally,
\nTo furnish our carousing.
\nFierce warriors rushed to meet us;
\nWe met them, and o’erthrew them:
\nThey struggled hard to beat us;
\nBut we conquered them, and slew them.<\/p>\n

As we drove our prize at leisure,
\nThe king marched forth to catch us:
\nHis rage surpassed all measure,
\nBut his people could not match us.
\nHe fled to his hall-pillars;
\nAnd, ere our force we led off,
\nSome sacked his house and cellars,
\nWhile others cut his head off.<\/p>\n

We there, in strife bewild’ring,
\nSpilt blood enough to swim in:
\nWe orphaned many children,
\nAnd widowed many women.
\nThe eagles and the ravens
\nWe glutted with our foemen;
\nThe heroes and the cravens,
\nThe spearmen and the bowmen.<\/p>\n

We brought away from battle,
\nAnd much their land bemoaned them,
\nTwo thousand head of cattle,
\nAnd the head of him who owned them:
\nEdnyfed, king of Dyfed,
\nHis head was borne before us;
\nHis wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
\nAnd his overthrow, our chorus.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a matter of policy I no longer post or link to YouTube videos, but with a bit of searching you can find Dylan Thomas declaiming Peacock’s poem. I’d be curious to hear this war song set to music by a competent folk metal band.<\/p>\n

Those who have read, or have been forced to read, the English romantic poets might enjoy Peacock’s caricatures of Shelley, Coleridge and Byron in Nightmare Abbey<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Update<\/strong>: At least one other blogger<\/a> is still posting poetry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the second of February bloggers traditionally post a favorite poem, though apparently I’m the only one who still does that. Here’s one from Thomas Love Peacock’s 1829 novel The Misfortunes of Elphin. The War-Song of Dinas Vawr By Thomas Love Peacock The mountain sheep are sweeter, But the valley sheep are fatter; We therefore … Continue reading “Sheep and Peacocks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xam3-IeY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170064"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170098,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170064\/revisions\/170098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}