The Spring 2012 set of Poems on the Underground features three poems by Shakespeare and three poems by Londoners: Sonnet 18 - ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ Under the greenwood tree - a merry song from As You Like It Puck to Oberon - ‘I go, I go, look how I go, Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow’ In the Heart of Hackney - by Sebastian Barker Viv - for cricketer Vivian Richards by Faustin Charles The Thunderbolt’s Training Manual - by Danielle Hope Find out more @ http://bit.ly/MClZW3

1. Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed; So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
William Shakespeare
MAYOR OF LONDON tfl.gov.uk/poems Transport for London

2. Puck to Oberon
I go, I go, look how I go,
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare
Illustration by Arthur Rackham
MAYOR OF LONDON tfl.gov.uk/poems Transport for London

3. Puck to Oberon
I go, I go, look how I go,
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare
Illustration by Arthur Rackham
MAYOR OF LONDON tfl.gov.uk/poems Transport for London

4. Under the greenwood tree
Under the greenwood tree Who doth ambition shun
Who loves to lie with me, And loves to live i’ the sun,
And turn his merry note Seeking the food he eats,
Unto the sweet bird’s throat, And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither: Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see Here shall he see
No enemy No enemy
But winter and rough weather. But winter and rough weather.
--As You Like It
William Shakespeare)
MAYOR OF LONDON tfl.gov.uk/poems Transport for London

5. The Thunderbolt’s Training Manual
Choose a soporific afternoon. As sunbathers Enjoy sound. A long peal
doze, saturday papers abandoned. a blast of cathedral bells. Crash.
Smell suntan oil among rhododendrons. Enjoy light flashed on dark.
Drone of bee and walkman. Newspapers speared on the rose bush.
Circle a breeze about marshy thighs. Relish the sunbathers’ scatter.
Cloud the sky. Start far off. Slowly. Listen to dogs bark and bark and bark.
Observe how sheep know better Send a drop of rain.
set their rumps to the wind. Send a canyon of rain.
Danielle Hope
Reprinted by permission of Rockingham Press from The Stone Ship (2003)
MAYOR OF LONDON tfl.gov.uk/poems Transport for London

6. Viv
Like the sun rising and setting for cricketer, Vivian Richards
Like the thunderous roar of a bull rhino
Like the sleek, quick grace of a gazelle, Through the covers, the warrior thrusts a majestic cut
The player springs into the eye Lighting the day with runs
And lights the world with fires As bodies reel and tumble,
Of a million dreams, a million aspirations. Hands clap, eyes water
The batsman-hero climbs the skies, And hearts move inside out.
Strikes the earth-ball for six
And the landscape rolls with the ecstasy of The volcano erupts!
the magic play. Blows the game apart.
Faustin Charles
Reprinted by permission of Peepal Tree Press from Children of the Morning: Selected Poems (2008)
MAYOR OF LONDON tfl.gov.uk/poems Transport for London

7. In the Heart of Hackney
Behold, a swan. Ten houseboats on the Lee. Behold, a dove. And in Bomb Crater Pond
A cyclist on the towpath. Gentle rain. Fat frogs ignore the rain.
A pigeon in a white apple-blossoming tree. Each trembling rush signals like a wand
And through the Marsh the rumble of a train. Earthing the magic of London once again.
Two courting geese waddle on the bank In the heart of Hackney, five miles from Kentish Town,
Croaking. A man unties his boat. By Lammas Lands the reed beds are glowing rich and brown.
Police cars howl and whoop. And vast and blank
The rain cloud of the sky is trampled underfoot.
Sebastian Barker
Reprinted by permission of Enitharmon Press from Damnatio Memoriae: Erased from Memory (2004)
MAYOR OF LONDON tfl.gov.uk/poems Transport for London