Time is a tumble-down, a break your crown;
the vinegar, brown paper do not cure;
not even sly smiles can erase the frown,
nor smoothing hand restore sweet demeanor.
What have you gained who lost the heights
and all the water spilled upon the floor,
but deeper resignation to the slights
that fate can heap? And few come to the door.
Jill split from Jack, so then the sly smiles died;
they blocked each other on their media.
From time to time they held their breath then sighed;
stubbornness gripped them rigid, needier.
On level plains there are no bubbling springs;
and buzzards circle high on casual wings.
.................
There are many versions of the rhyme but the modern two-verse one goes like this:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
and Jill came tumbling after.
Up Jack got and home did trot,
as fast as he could caper;
he went to bed to mend his head
with vinegar and brown paper.
From Wiki. - The phrase "Jack and Jill", indicating a boy and a girl, was in use in England as early as the 16th century. A comedy was performed at the Elizabethan court in 1567-8 with the title Jack and Jill and the phrase was used twice by Shakespeare: in A Midsumer Night's dream , which contains the line: "Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill" (III:ii:460-2) and in , Love's Labours Lost, which has the lines: "Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill" (V:ii:874–5), suggesting that it was a phrase that indicated a romantically attached couple, as in the proverb "A good Jack makes a good Jill".
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Wintering
PoetryIt's yet another MajorSeventh. Hop on the big shoulders and look ... Lastest poems are always posted last in my collections. Winter. So, expect sparse gardens, late autumn and wintry countryside, wry philosophy and humour, tenderness towards litt...
