Collected Poems by Anthony Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) 📕

259. ‘I’m weary of working with words that you write.’ Previously unpublished. IABF.

260. ‘How dare I dare to dream.’ Previously unpublished. IABF.

261. ‘His bowels are of gold, his veins of silver.’ Previously unpublished. From the script for Cyrus the Great (1977). Gyzat’s song, sung by a Eunuch. Belshazzar notes that this is ‘nothing new’ and consists of the ‘same weary old images ... must get me a new court poet, must I not? There is already one ready there, smirking, young, handsome, catamitic.’ Typescript draft.

262. ‘I am sick of a kingdom which is a jewelled prison.’ Previously unpublished. From the script for Cyrus the Great (1977). Having sung this song, Gyzat asks ‘Is that enough, your majesty?’. Belshazzar replies ‘I think so, Gyzat ... will you scream in metre, groan in numbers? I am, you see, something of a poet myself…’. He then sends for whips, ‘Gyzat,’ we are told, ‘awaits the worst.’

263. ‘Lex for law and order.’ Previously unpublished. Dawn Chorus is a film script about a specialist in ornithological sounds, and a producer of avant-garde music based on birdsong and electronic music. The lead character becomes an unwitting part in a political scandal that involves hyper-conservative leader Lex Penninck. The film is set ‘in a tropical zone undefined’. Some revolutionary thugs sing this with ‘fervour’. Lex is a right-wing politician, who appears on TV earlier in the film script in front of a sign that reads ‘Lex means Law’. Typescript draft.

264. ‘I wouldn’t frirk Uranus.’ From a draft of the novel Puma, dated 31 January 1976.

265. ‘Here on the final pyre.’ Previously unpublished. From draft of Puma, dated 31 January 1976.

266. ‘A bird sat high on a banyan tree.’ Song sung by the character Kartar Singh. In Burgess’s original text, this song appears in various pages, embedded in prose text; in the novel, verse breaks are delineated by ellipses, which have here been replaced by line breaks. The final ellipsis has been retained. The Enemy in the Blanket, pp. 88–91.

267. ‘Beasts and men are made the same.’ This song is sung by Kartar Singh, who ‘raised his tuneless voice in a doubtful ballad’. The Enemy in the Blanket, p. 130.

268. ‘Oh, love, love, love.’ Sung, ‘relaxed without effort, against the pre-Raphaelitish chords of early Debussy’ in Beds in the East, pp. 146-7.

269. ‘We will build a bridge to heaven.’ This appears to be a Burgess original, although ‘Night and morning, noon and even’ is taken directly from ‘Sound Sleep’ by Christina G. Rossetti. Devil of a State (London: Heinemann, 1961), p. 43.

270. ‘We’ll be coming home.’ Song sung to a mouth organ tune by soldiers. The Wanting Seed (London: Heinemann, 1962), pp. 240-6.

271. ‘My adorable Fred.’ Described as ‘a song that had recently become popular’. This song is said to be ‘much burbled on the television by epicene willowy youths.’ The Wanting Seed, p. 3.

272. ‘My dead tree. Give me back my dead dead tree.’ A song recited by ‘one of the bearded homos’. ‘Bloody nonsense,’ said the man’ who was listening next to Tristram. The Wanting Seed, p. 38.

273. ‘This lovely queen, if I should win her.’ This poem is recited by ‘Melvin Johnson (illustrious surname) who, balanced on his head, feet high in the air, recited loudly a triolet of his own composition. It was strange to see the upside-down mouth, hear the right-way-up words...’ The Wanting Seed, p. 182.

274. ‘How come that such a scholar.’ Described as a song ‘from a silly college musical of the thirties’. The Clockwork Testament, p. 146. Transcribed from AB/ARCH/A/TCT (IABF).

275. ‘Ich nem’ ein’ Zigarett’. Receited by a character called Dorothy in ‘Dietrich style’. Earthly Powers, p. 473.

276. ‘You whom the fisherfolk of Myra believe.’ Song ascribed to Kenneth Toomey, and sung by Dominico Campinati. Earthly Powers, p. 508.

277. ‘Waking and sleeping.’ These are verses from a musical comedy which, according to Toomey, ’you could hardly call this sort of thing literature … A young man named Cecil loves a girl called Cecilia but cannot bring himself to utter the ultimate endearment. In August 1914 he said I love you to a girl and immediately war broke out.’ Earthly Powers, pp. 90-91.

278. ‘Money isn’t everything.’ A chorus from an opera by Domenico Campinati and Kenneth Toomey, which they sing as they reach the casino in Monaco. IABF, AB/ARCH/A/EAR.

279. ‘I’ll crash the moon.’ A popular song sung through a microphone. Toomey recalls: ‘Popular songs were, at that time, going through a brief phase of literacy.’ Earthly Powers, pp. 347-8.

280. Une P’tite Spécialité Called L’Amour. Toomey is called upon by a ship’s steward to sing this in a ship’s lounge bar. Toomey is clearly ashamed of the words: ‘I could not well deny knowing this song, since I had written the word. It came in that wartime horror Say It, Cecil.’ A version with a different line order and only very slight wording differences is held at the IABF. The Earthly Powers version used here is more complete. Earthly Powers, p. 225.

281. Cabbage Face. This, according to Burgess, ‘was for use in a mock music lesson in a pantomime. The refrain-title was a spelling out of the notes that made up the melody’. Little Wilson and Big God, p. 161.

282. Nathan’s Song. Nathan’s song. ‘The words said something to the effect that the singers were the descendants of David, a shepherd who had become kind, and that they wished the spirit of David to watch over them.’ Man of Nazareth (London: Magnum/Methuen, 1980), p. 49.

283. ‘Thy mouth, a fig, thy teeth.’ Jesus’ flattering language. Burgess notes that, in his adolescence, Jesus ‘found time in the cool of the evening to engage in… speaking flattering language to the dark-eyed girls, even singing songs to a two-string fiddle accompaniment’. Man of Nazareth, p. 93.

284. ‘My love lay across the waters.’ This song is sung by Philip while he is fishing with Jesus. James and John’s following verses (see below) are taken as a ‘more practical song.’ Man of Nazareth, p. 150.

285. ‘Fish grey, fish