Eric Blair

Eric Arthur Blair, known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. He is best known for his allegorical novella 'Animal Farm' and the dystopian novel '1984'. Orwell's work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.

June 25, 1903

January 21, 1950

English

Eric Blair

A Little Poem

A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;

But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.

And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.

All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.

But girls bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.

It is forbidden to dream again;
We maim our joys or hide them:
Horses are made of chromium st...

Eric Blair

Awake! Young Men of England

Oh! give me the strength of the Lion,
The wisdom of reynard the Fox
And then Ill hurl troops at the Germans
And give them the hardest of knocks.

Oh! think of the War Lords mailed fist,
That is striking at England today:
And think of the lives that our soldiers
Are fearlessly throwing away.

Awake! Oh you young men of England,
For if, when your Countrys in need,
You do not enlist by the thousand,
You truly are cowards indeed.

Eric Blair

Ironic Poem About Prostitution

When I was young and had no sense
In far-off Mandalay
I lost my heart to a Burmese girl
As lovely as the day.

Her skin was gold, her hair was jet,
Her teeth were ivory;
I said, for twenty silver pieces,
Maiden, sleep with me.

She looked at me, so pure, so sad,
The loveliest thing alive,
And in her lisping, virgin voice,
Stood out for twenty-five.

Eric Blair

Kitchener

No stone is set to mark his nations loss,
No stately tomb enshrines his noble breast;
Not een the tribute of a wooden cross
Can mark this heros rest.

He needs them not, his name untarnished stands,
Remindful of the mighty deeds he worked,
Footprints of one, upon times changeful sands,
Who neer his duty shirked.

Who follows in his steps no danger shuns,
Nor stoops to conquer by a shameful deed,
An honest and unselfish race he runs,
From fear and malice freed.

Eric Blair

Our Minds Are Married, But We Are Too Young

Our minds are married, but we are too young
For wedlock by the customs of this age
When parent homes pen each in separte cage
And only supper-earning songs are sung.

Times past, when medieval woods were green,
Babes were betrothed, and that betrothal brief.
Remember Romeo in love and grief
Those star-crossed lovers, Juliet was fourteen.

Times past, the caveman by his new-found fire
Rested beside his mate in woodsmokes scent.
By our own fireside we shall rest content
Fifty years hence keep troth with hearts desire.

We shall remember, when our hair is white,
These clouded days revealed in radiant light.

Eric Blair

Poem From Burma

Brush your teeth up and down, brother,
Oh, brush them up and down!
All the folks in London Town
Brush their teeth right up and down.
Oh! How they shine!
Arent they bloody fine?
Night and morning, my brother,
Oh brush them up and down!

Eric Blair

The Lesser Evil

Empty as death and slow as pain
The days went by on leaden feet;
And parsons week had come again
As I walked down the little street.

Without, the weary doves were calling,
The sun burned on the banks of mud;
Within, old maids were caterwauling
A dismal tale of thorns and blood.

I thought of all the church bells ringing
In towns that Christian folks were in;
I heard the godly maidens singing;
I turned into the house of sin.

The house of sin was dark & mean,
With dying flowers round the door;
They spat their betel juice between
The rotten bamboos of the floor.

Why did I come, the woman cried,
So seldom to her beds of ease?
When I was not, her spirit died,
And would I give her ten rupees.

The weeks went by, a...

Eric Blair

The Pagan

So here are you, and here am I,
Where we may thank our gods to be;
Above the earth, beneath the sky,
Naked souls alive and free.
The autumn wind goes rustling by
And stirs the stubble at our feet;
Out of the west it whispering blows,
Stops to caress and onward goes,
Bringing its earthy odours sweet.
See with what pride the the setting sun
Kinglike in gold and purple dies,
And like a robe of rainbow spun
Tinges the earth with shades divine.
That mystic light is in your eyes
And ever in your heart will shine.

Eric Blair