Gustav Holst, of course: composer of The Planets suite, music master for a troop of Paulinas, trombonist, Whitman aficionado, and the subject of the KR Blog’s Adventure in Light Verse.
Here’s Holst’s: “Jupiter: Bringer of Jollity”
No mind’s
Eye meteors nor blind-
Sight space meadows
Need crow now
Through one’s moonrock
Ear wax: doc-
umentary footage sails
Very–relax–easily,
Like lunch pail
Comic book scenery.
Joke: Where do Martians keep their armories?
In their sleeveries.
–Zach Savich
William Gillies Whittaker to Holst, March 20, 1919.
Like Jupiter, Holst could play bringer of jollity, as in a scheme he concocted with Amy Kemp to repair dear Vally Lasker’s couch at The Jolly Talgarth.
Guests of the Jolly Talgarth
Word up! Holst, or
Stravinsky?–-no, Holst–-wishes to upholster
an invalid couch that’s come un-sprung.
(“Stravinsky”: sorry. Slip of the tongue.)
–Cody Walker
Holst had rules!
Gustav Holst to William Gillies Whittaker, December 13, 1915.
which reads“
I’m no good at teaching by correspondence, but here are three suggestions.
1) Let me see yr next thing in its early stages.
2) Never write music when you feel excited.
3) Avoid jumping about from one key to another. The modern tendency is to enlarge the scope of a key ??? a very different thing. This is only the fringe of the matter but we must meet some time and then we’ll have a good whack in. However these points are sound as far as they go.
Three Suggestions
1) Let me see
yr next thing
in its early stages.
Not received
yr texting
for what seems nearly ages
2) Never write music
when you feel
excited
But what you got, use it
love the real
don’t fight it
3)Avoid
jumping
from one key to another
Annoy
something
if only to discover
This is only
the fringe of the matter.
There’s more to know
And more that makes us sadder.
We meet or else we’re lonely,
some time we’ll get a whack in,
and if you’re feeling low
hum some Michael Jackson:
A B C, as easy as 1 2 3
Is how easy love can be
So I’m a gonna to teach you how to sing it loud
Now or never join the in crowd.
The modern tendency is leggo my eggo
However these points are sound as far as they go.
–Jonathan Crimmins
Gustav Holst, what’s not to love?
Loud Valentine (for Gustav Holst)
Sweet little earthling thing
Ringing interplanetary
Around the ding-a-ling
A-loud-ly trumpet piper pick and
Pickle-ing. Lob a libeling, dear
Dare the darling, and dumpling,
Dump it here.
Gosling sling your arrows
But fortune leads to suffering.
Does the foundling founder?
Or the earthling earth?
The changeling swore he wouldn’t,
But then he did, for what it’s worth.
Seed and sap are at opposite ends
Of the year, and the yearling–
Is just a youngling indebted to the sun.
Addling, it’s true we are a little.
Tickle and riddling too. Leaving
The underling under water
Wondering, who am I?
Poet a-la-wing–too far flung
Along this planet’s heartstring.
–Catherine Wing