{"id":27362,"date":"2014-11-25T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=27362"},"modified":"2014-11-30T21:30:57","modified_gmt":"2014-11-30T08:30:57","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-the-puk-wudjies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/11\/25\/the-tuesday-poem-the-puk-wudjies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: The Puk-Wudjies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Puk-Wudjies<\/b><\/p>\n

They live ‘neath the curtain
\nOf fir woods and heather,
\nAnd never take hurt in
\nThe wildest of weather,
\nBut best they love Autumn, she’s brown as themselves,
\nAnd they are the brownest of all the brown elves;
\nWhen loud sings the West Wind,
\nThe bravest and best wind,
\nAnd puddles are shining in all the cart ruts,
\nThey turn up the dead leaves,
\nThe russet and red leaves,
\nWhere squirrels have taught them to look out for nuts!
\nThe hedge-cutters hear them
\nWhere berries are glowing,
\nThe scythe circles near them
\nAt time of the mowing,
\nBut most they love woodlands when
\nAutumn’s winds pipe,
\nAnd all through the cover the beechnuts are ripe,
\nAnd great spikey chestnuts,
\nThe biggest and best nuts,
\nBlown down in the ditches, fair windfalls lie cast,
\nAnd no tree begrudges
\nThe little Puk-Wudjies
\nA pocket of acorns, a handful of mast!
\nSo should you be roaming
\nWhere branches are sighing,
\nWhen up in the gloaming
\nThe moon-wrack is flying,
\nAnd hear through the darkness, again and again,
\nWhat’s neither the wind nor the spatter of rain?
\nA flutter, a flurry,
\nA scuffle, a scurry,
\nA bump like the rabbits’ that bump on the ground,
\nA patter, a bustle
\nOf small things that rustle,
\nYou’ll know the Puk-Wudjies are somewhere around!<\/p>\n

by<\/i> Patrick Reginald Chalmers, 1872 – 1942<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

I always loved this poem as a child, especially lines such as:<\/p>\n

“When loud sings the West Wind\/\/The bravest and best wind”<\/em> and<\/p>\n

“So should you be roaming\/\/Where branches are sighing,<\/em>
\nWhen up in the gloaming\/\/The moon-wrack is flying”<\/em><\/p>\n

The rhythm and the images called up are both wonderfully evocative.<\/p>\n

The poet, Patrick Reginald Chalmers, was (according to Wikipedia) “an Irish writer, who worked as a banker. His first book was Green Days and Blue Days<\/i> (1912), followed by A Peck of Malt<\/i> (1915).”<\/p>\n

—
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon<\/strong> in the sidebar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Puk-Wudjies They live ‘neath the curtain Of fir woods and heather, And never take hurt in The wildest of weather, But best they love Autumn, she’s brown as themselves, And they are the brownest of all the brown elves; When loud sings the West Wind, The bravest and best wind, And puddles are shining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27362"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27441,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27362\/revisions\/27441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}