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THE DONG WITH THE LUMINOUS NOSE
(a cento)

by John Ashbery
 

[title]
Edward Lear (1812-88) The Dong with a Luminous Nose
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/lear7.html

 

Within a windowed niche of that high hall
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III, 199 (verse XXIII)
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/byron10.html

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, 1
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/hopkins14.html

I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) The Waste Land, 132
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/wastland.html

Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn.
Thomas Gray (1716-1771) Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 105
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/gray4.html

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) Ulysses, 54
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/tennyson8.html

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) Henry V, Act 4 Prologue, 4
http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/henryv/henryv.4.0.html

Come, Shepherd, and again renew the quest.
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) The Scholar Gipsy, 10 ("Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!")
http://www.bartleby.com/101/751.html

And birds sit brooding in the snow.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) Spring and Winter ii, 12
http://www.bartleby.com/101/126.html

 

Continuous as the stars that shine,
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud, 1
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/wordswor27.html

When men were all asleep the snow came flying
Robert Bridges (1844-1930) London Snow
http://www.bartleby.com/66/75/8275.html

Near where the dirty Thames does flow
William Blake (1757-1827) Notebook XX, London, 2 ("Near where the charter'd Thames does flow")
http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccacad/english/resources/blake/poems/notebookXX.html
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/blake19.html

Through caverns measureless to man,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) Kubla Khan, 4
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/coleridg4.html

Where thou shalt see the red-gilled fishes leap
Christopher Marlowe (1564-93) Dido Queen of Carthage Act IV, Scene 5
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/dido.htm

And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws
Edward Lear (1812-88) The Jumblies, stanza 5
http://netpoets.com/classic/039002.htm

Where the remote Bermudas ride.
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) Bermudas, 1
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/marvell3.html

 

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me:
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) Piano, 1
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/dhl23.html

This is the cock that crowed in the morn.
nursery rhyme: The House That Jack Built
http://www.mothergoosestories.com/hijk.shtml

Who'll be the parson?
nursery rhyme: Who Killed Cock Robin?
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Fountain/5540/Whokilledcockrobin.html (questionable source)

Beppo! That beard of yours becomes you not!
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) Beppo, stanza 93

A gentle answer did the old Man make:
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Resolution and Independence, 85
http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww202.html
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/wordswor15.html

Farewell, ungrateful traitor,
John Dryden (1631–1700) Farewell, Ungrateful Traitor!, 1
http://www.enjoypoetry.com/share/share5.htm

Bright as a seedsman's packet
Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) Polka, 21
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/s/sitwell/polka.html (questionable source)
apparently this poem inspired the Grateful Dead song China Cat Sunflower - see
http://arts.ucsc.edu/GDead/AGDL/china.html

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles.
Robert Browning (1812-1889) Love Among the Ruins, 1
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/browning6.html

 

Obscurest night involved the sky
William Cowper (1731–1800) The Castaway, 1
http://www.bartleby.com/41/321.html

And brickdust Moll had screamed through half a street:
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) A Description of the Morning, 14
http://netpoets.com/classic/062002.htm

"Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) Sonnet. A Superscription, 1
http://www.sonnets.org/rossettd.htm#097

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
John Keats (1795-1821) Ode on a Grecian Urn, 3
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/keats19.html

Every nighte and alle,
Anonymous (17th-century) A Lyke-Wake Dirge
http://www.bartleby.com/101/381.html

The happy highways where I went
A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896. XL. Into my heart on air that kills, 7
http://www.bartleby.com/123/40.html

To the Hills of Chankly Bore!"
Edward Lear (1812-88)
The Dong with a Luminous Nose, 7 ("Of the Hills of the Chankly Bore")
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/lear7.html
The Jumblies, 5th line from end ("To the hills of the Chankly Bore!")
http://netpoets.com/classic/039002.htm

 

Where are you going to, my pretty maid?
nursery rhyme
http://trmg.designwest.com/TRMG5.html#112a (questionable source)

These lovers fled away into the storm
John Keats (1795-1821)  The Eve of St. Agness, 371
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/keats13.html

And it's O dear what can the matter be?
nursery rhyme
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfa/dreamhouse/nursery/rhymes/ohdear.html (questionable source)
http://trmg.designwest.com/TRMG1.html#14a (questionable source)

For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) Mandalay, 3
http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Rudyard_Kipling/kipling_mandalay.htm

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
W.H. Auden (1907-73) Lullaby, 1
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1388

On the wide level of a mountain's head
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) Time, Real and Imaginary, An Allegory, 1
http://www.bartleby.com/101/553.html

Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,
John Dryden (1631-1700)  MacFlecknoe: A Satire Upon the True-Blue Protestant Poet T.S., 27
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/dryden3.html

In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)  The Scholar-Gipsy, 111
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/arnold9.html

A ship is floating in the harbour now,
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Epipsychidion, 408
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/shelley17.html

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Ode
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, 133
http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html

 


This page updated May 11, 2002
Send comments to Doug Kirshen, Brandeis University English Department, kirshen@brandeis.edu.