My eye was caught by the word 'classics', as you might expect, which does increasingly mean literature, music and artefacts which stand as supreme examples against which others are to be judged - a classic rock and roll recording, a classic car, even a classic goal or innings - and our pupils might be reminded of that from time to time.
At the same time I am sorry if generations to come grow up without this of Herrick, worthy to stand beside Catullus, and showing that even if sex was invented in 1963, love has been around for a long time:
"Bid me to weep, and I will weep
While I have eyes to see:
And, having none, yet will I keep
A heart to weep for thee. ...
Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me:
And hast command of every part
To live and die for thee."
or this thoroughly Christian take on bereavement from Henry Vaughan, unfashionable maybe:"They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit ling'ring here; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear."As for Milton, I admit that when my daughter studied Paradise Lost for A level she floundered in the multitude of Classical and Biblical references - and we couldn't possibly expect our 21st century young people to know the Classics or the Bible, could we?
But still, I was so entranced by L'Allegro that I learned a lot of it by heart, in the days when I was young enough for poetry to stick in the memory. I could say this still - though I admit I've checked the book for spelling and punctuation before typing it out for the world to see:
To hear the Lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-towre in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to com in spight of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
'Through the Sweet-Briar, or the Vine,
Or the twisted Eglantine.
'Oh no they can't take this away from me.' Don't take it away from the next generation!
