These books are poetry anthologies that include historical poems and poems written long ago. They can be found in the non-fiction at 808.1. If you scroll down further I have also put in links to historical ballads with great story lines.
Romance and Revenge
- Geordie - A wife races to the King to plead for the life of her rebel husband. It is a very old English folk ballad collected by Child (209) about a hundred years ago.
- The Highwayman - The innkeeper's daughter risks everything to warn her outlaw-lover that visiting her is a trap Loreena McKennett has set Tennyson's poem to music
- Tam Lin - A young aristocrat is seduced and then saves her lover from being taken by the fairies. Vox has some interesting interpretations. there are lots of song versions on line.
- Lady of Shallot - A woman is cursed to weave her life away in a tower observing life (and love) only in a mirror. Celtic musician, Loreena McKennet has set Tennyson's poem to music and there are several important pre-raphaelite paintings depicting her.
Murder and Mayhem
- La Belle Dame Sans Merci - Tennyson's famous poem about a knight who falls foul of a femme fatale. There are lots of C19th paintings inspired by the poem (see image above).
- Cruel sister - another very old English folk ballad, telling the tale of two sisters who fall for the same knight - You'll never think a harp is a romantic instrument again!
- The Elf Knight - this old English ballad tells the story of a Lady who takes revenge on her kidnapper - it's a very old song and exists in lots of different versions - I especially like the ones where her parrot threatens to dob her in to her father, but she bribes him with a gilded cage! Steeleye span have a modernised version of the ballad.
- Mac the Knife - as the title suggests this is a very dark song about a serial killer. It was part of a stage production by modernist German playwright, Bertold Brecht. There are lots of classic jazz versions, but I think Nick Cave's version is most evocative, but don't listen to this (or the next song) before sleeping!
- The Ballad of Sweeny Todd - another understated and extremely dark song about a serial killer, from Sondheim's opera Sweeney Todd which was made into a movie by Tim Burton in 2007.
Mystics, Madmen and Monsters
- Beast of Bodmin Moor - A mythical panther is said to roam Bodmin Moor in England. Kadia has a ballad version with a good join-in chorus. this beast is the likely inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
- Tom 'O Bedlam and Bedlam Boys - Bedlam was a mental institution where people with all kinds of issues (or not) were imprisoned and treated horribly. Ordinary Londoners treated it like a zoo and went there to view the 'madmen'. This 500 year old song about Mad Maud's search for Tom of Bedlam lists the kinds of craziness that got you committed...
Tall Tales of Heroism
- The Man from Snowy River - a must for horse lovers , this poem evokes the importance of horses in early Australian life in the Southern Highlands. Jackie French's novel, The Girl from Snowy River, gives it a feminist spin. I was also made into a long running TV series in the 1980s.
- Mulga Bill's Bicycle - an epic adventure on a pennyfarthing bicycle leaves the owner convinced horses are a safer way to travel
- The Miner's Washing - A contemporary shanty written to show the (literally) darker side of a woman's life as a miner's wife - lyrics include some words which have dropped out of use since the invention of the washing machine (copper, dolley) that you'll need to look up. Yes, it really did take all day to do the washing!