TEST DRAFT 3 With LLaregub footnotes The Boy Who Shot Flimzy Bubbletrumpett- macbook 2

Yes. I have set myself a task to write a poem about the birds of every county in England.
That sounds difficult! Why England?
Well when I was young I read Ode to a Nightingale. Thou wast not born for death, immortal
Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down… And then To a Skylark. Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert… And then The Darkling Thrush. An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and
small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul. Upon the growing gloom.
Isn’t that beautiful? You see in our house when I was growing up we only had three books.
Dental Hygiene for Beginners, How to Address an Archbishop and other Problems of
Etiquette and Fine Feathers: An Anthology of English Bird Poetry. I still have no idea what to
call an Archbishop. My teeth are… not too bad, I suppose. But I do know about English bird
poetry. And I decided I shall write the best, the definitive, the finest, collection of English bird
poems. A bird for every county.
And how is it going?
Well… I have made a start. That’s the hardest part. Would you like to hear some?
I said I would.
Very well. But bear in mind, blast-beruffled plume and Upon the growing gloom when you
hear it.
I said I would.
There is no sound on Earth that I find as sweet
No sound I’d rather hear
Than the distant dirge of droning Doves, in delightful Devonshire.
Oh, the land I want to live in
The place I want to be
Is where I can hear the silk soft song of the Sanderling, as it skims the Sussex sea.
What do you think? You see I have both Devonshire and Sussex in the opening verse.
I said I thought it a very promising start to a very difficult task.
Thank you. Yes, it is difficult, but I think with writing poetry it is best to start with difficult
things. Otherwise you may find you never get beyond limericks and rhyming couplets. They
are so addictive.
A young poet with whom I had tea
Said, and I think you’ll agree,
That a limerick
Is a simple trick
And far to easy for me.
That’s very good! I said, I have always been hopeless at limericks. I can never get them to
scan.
Then don’t try! There’s a well-known limerick that goes:
There was a young man from Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why that was,
He replied "It's because
I always try to cram as many words into the last line as I possibly can." 47
But back to my bird poem. The way I am approaching it is to get the alliterative third lines for
all the English counties and then build the poem up from there. For example:
The plaintive pipe of the Pipistrelle in pleasant – or better picturesque – Pembrokeshire.
What do you think?
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