Green Glass Beads Read online

Your Grandmother

  Remember, remember, there’s many a thing

  your grandmother doesn’t dig

  if it ain’t got that swing;

  many a piece of swag

  she won’t pick up and put in her bag

  if it seems like a drag.

  She painted it red – the town –

  she lassooed the moon.

  Remember, remember, your grandmother

  boogied on down.

  Remember, remember, although your grandmother’s old,

  she shook, she rattled, she rolled.

  She was so cool she was cold,

  she was solid gold.

  Your grandmother played it neat,

  wore two little blue suede shoes

  on her dancing feet –

  oo, reet-a-teet-teet –

  Remember, remember, your grandmother

  got with the beat.

  Remember, remember, it ain’t what you do

  it’s the way that you do it.

  Your grandmother knew it –

  she had a balloon and she blew it,

  she had a ball

  and was belle of it

  just for the hell of it.

  She was Queen of the night.

  Remember, remember, your grandmother’s

  aaaaaaaaaaaallllllll riiiiiiiiiiiight.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Rooty Tooty

  Grandad used to be a pop star,

  with a red-and-silver guitar.

  He wore leather jackets and drainpipe jeans.

  He drove around in limousines,

  waving to screaming fans.

  Fab! said Grandad. Groovy!

  I really dig it, man!

  Grandad used to have real hips,

  he swivelled and did The Twist.

  His record went to Number One.

  Grandad went like this:

  Rooty tooty, yeah yeah.

  Rooty tooty, yeah yeah.

  Rooty tooty, yeah yeah.

  Then Grandad met Gran.

  Gran was dancing under a glitterball.

  Grandad was on bass.

  He noticed how a thousand stars

  sparkled and shone in her face.

  And although Gran fancied the drummer,

  Grandad persevered. He wrote Gran

  a hundred love songs

  down through their happy years.

  Grandad used to be a pop star,

  a rock’n’roll man –

  Rooty tooty, yeah yeah yeah –

  and Grandad loved groovy Gran,

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Grandpa’s Soup

  No one makes soup like my Grandpa’s,

  with its diced carrots the perfect size

  and its diced potatoes the perfect size

  and its wee soft bits –

  what are their names? –

  and its big bit of hough,

  which rhymes with loch, floating

  like a rich island in the middle of the soup sea.

  I say. Grandpa, Grandpa, your soup is the

  best soup in the whole world.

  And Grandpa says, Och,

  which rhymes with hough and loch,

  Och, don’t be daft,

  because he’s shy about his soup, my Grandpa.

  He knows I will grow up and pine for it.

  I will fall ill and desperately need it.

  I will long for it my whole life after he is gone.

  Every soup will become sad and wrong after

  he is gone.

  He knows when I’m older I will avoid soup altogether.

  Oh Grandpa, Grandpa, why is your soup so glorious? I say,

  tucking into my fourth bowl in a day.

  Barley! That’s the name of the wee soft bits. Barley.

  Jackie Kay

  NYMPHS, MERMAIDS, FAIRIES, WITCHES – AND ONE GIANTESS

  Overheard on a Saltmarsh

  Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?

  Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?

  Give them me.

  No.

  Give them me. Give them me.

  No.

  Then I will howl all night in the reeds,

  Lie in the mud and howl for them.

  Goblin, why do you love them so?

  They are better than stars or water,

  Better than voices of winds that sing,

  Better than any man’s fair daughter,

  Your green glass beads on a silver ring.

  Hush, I stole them out of the moon.

  Give me your beads, I want them.

  No.

  I will howl in a deep lagoon

  For your green glass beads. I love them so

  Give them me. Give them.

  No

  Harold Monro

  from Prothalamion

  There, in a meadow, by the river’s side,

  A flock of nymphs I chanced to espy,

  All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,

  With goodly greenish locks all loose untied,

  As each had been a bride;

  And each one had a little wicker basket,

  Made of fine twigs entrailèd curiously,

  In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,

  And with fine fingers cropped full feateously

  The tender stalks on high.

  Of every sort, which in that meadow grew,

  They gathered some, the violet pallid blue,

  The little daisy that at evening closes,

  The virgin lily, and the primrose true,

  With store of vermeil roses,

  To deck their bridegrooms’ posies,

  Against the bridal day, which was not long:

  Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.

  Edmund Spenser

  Sabrina Fair

  Sabrina fair

  Listen where thou art sitting

  Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

  In twisted braids of Lillies knitting

  The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,

  Listen for dear honour’s sake,

  Goddess of the silver lake,

  Listen and save.

  John Milton

  The Mermaid

  I

  Who would be

  A mermaid fair,

  Singing alone,

  Combing her hair

  Under the sea,

  In a golden curl

  With a comb of pearl,

  On a throne?

  II

  I would be a mermaid fair;

  I would sing to myself the whole of the day.

  With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;

  And still as I combed I would sing and say,

  ‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’

  I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall

  Low adown, low adown,

  And I should look like a fountain of gold

  Springing alone

  With a shrill inner sound,

  Over the throne

  In the midst of the hall.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  The Merman

  I

  Who would be

  A merman bold,

  Sitting alone,

  Singing alone

  Under the sea,

  With a crown of gold,

  On a throne?

  II

  I would be a merman bold;

  I would sit and sing the whole of the day.

  I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power

  But at night I would roam abroad and play

  With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,

  Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;

  And holding them back by their flowing locks

  I would kiss them often under the sea,

  And kiss them again till they kissed me

  Laughingly, laughingly;

  And then we would wander away, away,

>   To the pale sea-groves straight and high,

  Chasing each other merrily.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Wish

  She wished she could fly.

  She wished for friends

  who were birds and flowers.

  she wished she wore a silver frock.

  She wished she could speak

  with a magic tongue.

  She wished so hard.

  She wished so hard.

  Now she works

  in the baker’s shop.

  She wears a white coat

  and a netted cap.

  She speaks the language

  of mam and dad

  and at the end of each day

  her feet hurt.

  But at night she carries her baby

  up to the stars. She sings to him

  in the language of flowers.

  He reaches out to touch her silver wings.

  Mandy Coe

  The Girl Who Could See Fairies

  Wings whispered about her hair

  as she walked, half in the Otherworld,

  half in the mortal realm.

  She saw massive oaks

  dwarfing the grimy buildings,

  overlaying them like great, dark ghosts.

  She glimpsed, with her double vision,

  a white stag leaping through the passing traffic

  and felt a wreath of berries placed lightly on her head.

  Bluebells burst through the pavement beneath her feet

  and she trod through them as if in a dream.

  Nobody believed that she could see fairies.

  She was mocked

  and, eventually, locked

  into a hospital room

  from where, one day,

  she stepped out of the mortal world

  and into the Otherworld,

  leaving the room empty

  but for the scent of forests.

  Marian Swinger

  The Spider

  The fairy child loved her spider.

  Even when it grew fat

  And grey and old,

  She would comb its warm fur

  With a hazel twig

  And take it for slow walks

  On its silky lead.

  Sometimes it played cat-cradles with her

  But more often it wove hammocks

  Among the long grasses

  And they swung together under friendly trees.

  When it died,

  Her mother bought her a money spider

  Who scuttled and tumbled to make her smile.

  But it wasn’t the same,

  And still, when she curls up to sleep

  In the lonely dawn,

  She murmurs her old spider’s name.

  Clare Bevan

  A Fairy Went a-Marketing

  A fairy went a-marketing –

  She bought a little fish;

  She put it in a crystal bowl

  Upon a golden dish.

  An hour she sat in wonderment

  And watched its silver gleam,

  And then she gently took it up

  And slipped it in a stream.

  A fairy went a-marketing –

  She bought a coloured bird;

  It sang the sweetest, shrillest song

  That ever she had heard.

  She sat beside its painted cage

  And listened half the day,

  And then she opened wide the door

  And let it fly away.

  A fairy went a-marketing –

  She bought a winter gown

  All stitched about with gossamer

  And lined with thistledown.

  She wore it all the afternoon

  With prancing and delight,

  Then gave it to a little frog

  To keep him warm at night.

  A fairy went a-marketing –

  She bought a gentle mouse

  To take her tiny messages,

  To keep her tiny house.

  All day she kept its busy feet

  Pit-patting to and fro,

  And then she kissed its silken ears,

  Thanked it, and let it go.

  Rose Fyleman

  The Fairy’s Song

  from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  Over hill, over dale,

  Thorough bush, thorough brier,

  Over park, over pale,

  Thorough flood, thorough fire,

  I do wander everywhere,

  Swifter than the moon’s sphere;

  And I serve the fairy queen,

  To dew her orbs upon the green.

  The cowslips tall her pensioners be;

  In their gold coats spots you see;

  Those be rubies, fairy favours,

  In those freckles live their savours.

  I must go seek some dewdrops here,

  And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

  William Shakespeare

  The Fairies

  Up the airy mountain,

  Down the rushy glen,

  We daren’t go a-hunting

  For fear of little men;

  Wee folk, good folk,

  Trooping all together;

  Green jacket, red cap.

  And white owl’s feather!

  Down along the rocky shore

  Some make their home,

  They live on crispy pancakes

  Of yellow tide-foam;

  Some in the reeds

  Of the black mountain lake,

  With frogs for their watch-dogs,

  All night awake.

  High on the hill-top

  The old King sits;

  He is now so old and gray

  He’s nigh lost his wits.

  With a bridge of white mist

  Columbkill he crosses,

  On his stately journeys

  From Slieveleague to Rosses;

  Or going up with music

  On cold starry nights,

  To sup with the Queen

  Of the gay Northern Lights.

  They stole little Bridget

  For seven years long;

  When she came down again

  Her friends were all gone.

  They took her lightly back,

  Between the night and morrow,

  They thought that she was fast asleep,

  But she was dead with sorrow.

  They have kept her ever since

  Deep within the lake,

  On a bed of flag-leaves,

  Watching till she wake.

  By the craggy hill-side,

  Through the mosses bare,

  They have planted thorn-trees

  For pleasure here and there.

  Is any man so daring

  As dig them up in spite,

  He shall find their sharpest thorns

  In his bed at night.

  Up the airy mountain,

  Down the rushy glen,

  We daren’t go a-hunting

  For fear of little men;

  Wee folk, good folk,

  Trooping all together;

  Green jacket, red cap,

  And white owl’s feather!

  William Allingham

  Thrice Toss These Oaken Ashes in the Air

  Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air,

  Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair;

  Then thrice three times tie up this true love’s knot.

  And murmur soft: ‘She will, or she will not.’

  Go burn these poisonous weeds in yon blue fire,

  These screech-owl’s feathers and this prickling briar,

  This cypress gathered at a dead man’s grave,

  That all thy fears and cares an end may have.

  Then come, you fairies, dance with me a round;

  Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound.

  In vain are all the charms I can devise;

  She hath an art to break them with her eyes.
/>   Thomas Campion

  The Old Witch in the Copse

  I am a witch, and a kind old witch,

  There’s many a one that knows that –

  Alone I live in my little dark house

  With Pillycock, my cat

  A girl came running through the night

  When all the winds blew free:—

  ‘O mother, change a young man’s heart

  That will not look on me.

  O mother, brew a magic mead

  To stir his heart so cold.’