There was a goblin page-boy in it... .

[pameladean]

And now for something completely different.

As those of you who have read the Secret Country books know, in that universe, what we would call poetry operates rather as spells. I need a location spell (for illicit use, but never mind that now) and am not having much luck thinking of a fragment of verse that would serve.

I'm not asking anybody to do my research for me. Rather, if you happen to have in your head a bit of verse about finding something or someone, and would think of it at once if you were reading a book in which someone is trying to put together a location spell, by all means leave me a comment.

Have fun, if this is the kind of thing that strikes you as entertaining.

If I use your idea, I'll put you in the acknowledgements to the book.

Which reminds me, I haven't forgotten the dozens of you who kindly wrote at my request to tell me what it was like being a teenager in the 1980's, and at some point in the next few months I'll be asking you to email me about whether you want to be in the acknowledgements and if so under what name.

P.

Comments

[lomedet.livejournal.com]

I have no idea if this is what you're looking for, but it popped into my head pretty much at once (line breaks and punctuation may be off, as this is from memory):

I went searching for the pot of gold
That's waiting where the rainbow ends
I searched and searched and searched and searched
And searched and searched and then
There it was, deep in the grass
Under an old and trusty bough
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine at last
What do I search for now?
-Shel Silverstein

[mmseason.livejournal.com]

I just love Shel Silverstein. 80)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

(Shakespeare, of course. MND 5.1.14-17)

[pameladean]

Of imagination all compact!

Sorry, it's a reflex.

That would, umm, wow. Maybe later on, it's a little too broad for the present need.

P.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

This is the one that popped into my head:

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.

It's the last stanza of Milne's Spring Morning.

[pameladean]

Thank you, that's a possibility.

P.

[tanac.livejournal.com]

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

(huh, there's more to this one. Who knew?) the rest:

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

--HW Longfellow

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Heh. All that comes to my mind today is childhood doggerel:

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it;
Not a penny was there in it,
Only ribbon 'round it.

[pameladean]

Oh, I put my comment in the wrong place, I think. You have elucidated for me a minor joke in a Ngaio Marsh mystery, in which a man names a stray cat he has adopted Lucy Lockett.

P.

[galdrin.livejournal.com]

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. - Albert Camus, "Intuitions"

[melusinehr.livejournal.com]

The thought I had led me right back to your goblin page-boy. Heh.

There's always "Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now..."

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

Perhaps one of these? They're both from Longfellow's Evangeline, although I like the first one best.

"Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee?
Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach me?
Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie!
Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me!
Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor,
Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in thy slumbers.
When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded about thee?"

"Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and not elsewhere.
For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway,
Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness."

[sovay]

There is a sonnet written by one of the characters in Mary Gentle's Rats and Gargoyles (1990) which ends:

Lady, I love you: I leave love behind me:
Or, if you love me, follow me, and find me.

which came instantly to my mind. Otherwise I get Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not for Burning (1948):

My father broke on the wheel of a dream; he was lost
In a search.

and Yeats' "The Song of Wandering Aengus."

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

"And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind."

[carbonel]

Snap! The first thing that came to my mind was Donne's "Song."

[idiomagic.livejournal.com]

Here's one of mine,if it will serve:

Poet as Astronomer

I am the mapmaker
I connect all the dots
drawing new constellations
to mark true north.
How strange--
it seems
you can see my outlines
but never
the actual stars.

[pameladean]

I like this a lot, but I'm not sure it's right. I'm glad to have read it, though.

P.

All that comes to mind are the classics

[bibliofilen.livejournal.com]

William Butler Yeats.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.


And then this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ptqXqjsZw

Good luck!

Re: All that comes to mind are the classics

[pameladean]

Wow, that's an amazing video. Thanks!

P.

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

"Lucy Locket" was what came to my mind first, then "Little Bo Peep."

Despite the fact that I'm not Catholic I've used the standard Anthony rhyme: "Tony, Tony, turn around,/Something's lost that must be found." And the "Responsory for St Anthony" has these lines in it that were used by a friend's family: "The sea obeys and fetters break,/And lifeless limbs thou dost restore;/Whilst treasures lost are found again/When young or old thine aid implore."

What about John Newton's "Amazing Grace"? "I once was lost but now am found,/Was blind but now I see"?

Not necessarily poetry, but all rhymey things than can be used.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Nifty! I did not know about rhymes to St. Anthony for finding things.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

My first thought was the passage that begins "Come back to me/, my language./Come back/cacao/grigri/ciseaux/the scissor bird."" in Derek Walcott's Saint Lucie. That's not finding, though, but searching.

How about this:

I shape a circle, symbol of all space,
Within its bounds I lay all secrets bare
They're plain to me, and open to the air.
So I command the truth to show her face
By the one power that has granted full grace
To those who come before her and who dare
Cede their desires into her perfect care.
She will perform for glory of the chase.
Now in the circle underneath my hand
Turn as you will, you shall not get away
But must come patient to the sacred ground
where you will wait, where you will calmly stand,
obedient to the least small word I say
Willed to the spot, now safely home and found.

[pameladean]

Goodness! That would be quite a temptation to the character. Wow.

P.

[darius.livejournal.com]

What jumps to mind is "Quaerendo invenietis" from Bach's Musical Offering, not that two words make a poem.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Illud mihi iuvat. :)

[darius.livejournal.com]

Oh! And "Seek for the sword that is broken / In Imladris it dwells."

[darius.livejournal.com]

(That was broken, of course.)

[dejla.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid mine is much more prosaic... It's an Elvis Presley song called Finders Keepers...

Finders, keepers, losers, weepers
I won't weep and I won't moan
'Cause I found you and your love so true
And I'm keeping you for my own

[pameladean]

Apposite, though!

And, like a couple of other suggestions, perhaps overly tempting to Ruth.

P.

Almost certainly not in the right vein...

[(Anonymous)]

but still what comes to mind - finding something unexpected!

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away


Emily in NM

Re: Almost certainly not in the right vein...

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I thought of that, too.

Mista Kottah! Mista Kottah! I know this one

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

I'll wager someone has already posted Shakespeare's various snippets, and I know you already knew about those! *wink* But hey, how about THIS? Here is something that you can have without having to pay for it or acknowledge it.

It's a snippet from the second book in my DULCINEA series, _A Change in the Winds_. We all know I'm never gonna get it published, so hey, this way it could get published--at least in part. The verse is completely original with me (as far as I can recall--if I stole it, I've forgotten *grin*, and generally I only steal from Shakespeare and John M. Ford), so please forgive if it's LAME.

“That which I seek,
Our attraction is weak;
Let it grow stronger,
And wait no longer:
Come to me
As I call thee!”

I'll post the entire passage in my LJ just for grins. I really loved those books and their voice. I didn't go and give XLibris the second book in the series because I kept hoping, but anyhow. At least if you did pick this one, I would get my name printed in the acknowledgements of a book *swoon* and one of YOURS, to boot. Woo! But anyhow, don't let that turn you completely away from it. ;)

(My spells in the series are material components PLUS a verse that is not poetry quite, but more doggerel--like "Bewitched" and "Sabrina." *Grin*)

Re: Mista Kottah! Mista Kottah! I know this one

[pameladean]

I think your approach is a lot more authentic, insofar as that term has much meaning in this context. Like several other suggestions, this one would tempt the protagonist, but it wouldn't be the right idea. I haven't decided whether I want her to be tempted this way yet, though.

P.

[ambyr.livejournal.com]

"You said: 'I'll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one."

Cavafy's "The City." Not likely to work as a very -good- location spell, mind, given how the poem ends.

[pameladean]

That's one of the open questions, how much the context affects the operation of the spell.

P.

[serrana.livejournal.com]

I recall the last line of Tennyson's Ulysses: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Although I don't know if that has quite the right connotations, given what precedes it (and I had to google it to remember where that line came from, and whomp -- I probably last read that poem in high school, and it's still a heckuva thing, isn't it?)

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

That's very probably my favorite poem ever. It never gets old. :)

[rosefox]

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
--Walt Whitman

[pameladean]

Hmmmmmmmmm. Thanks.

P.

[mudandflame.livejournal.com]

I don't know if Ruth would have read Millay, but what came to mind is

Her the inhabiter of divers places
Surmising at all doors, I push them all.

[pameladean]

She hasn't read much, but I've changed the scene a bit. I think this one would scare her, though.

P.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Heee--I can't not think of poor Tom Sawyer reciting, "Brother, go find your brother!" and tossing a marble to find the one he'd lost. But Ruth would know that the method proved, um, inefficient at best.

(Text of chapter eight here.)

[pameladean]

Oh dear. Wow, I haven't read that book for years. It's still quite something.

P.

[raphaela.livejournal.com]

Prayer to St. Anthony for lost items

St. Anthony, perfect imitator of Jesus, who received from God the special power of restoring lost things, grant that I may find (name the lost item) which has been lost.

At least restore to me peace and tranquillity of mind, the loss of which has afflicted me even more than my material loss. To this favor, I ask another of you: that I may always remain in possession of the true good that is God. Let me rather lose all things than lose God, my supreme good. Let me never suffer the loss of my greatest treasure, eternal life with God.

Amen.

Catholically Educated Yours,
Lane ;)

[akamarykate.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's so much better than the one I learned as a kid in Catholic school:

St. Anthony, St. Anthony,
Please come around.
There's something lost
That needs to be found.


;)