The Ivy Green by Charles Dickens

The Poetry Podcast

Charles Dickens, 1812-1870 Charles Dickens was a famous and successful writer in the 19th-century, England. He was a novelist, a reporter, an essayist, a correspondent, and an editor. His work examines the reality of Victorian life as he knew it. He is famous for novels that include “A Christmas Carol,” and “Oliver Twist,” and “Great Expectations, and my personal favorite, “A Tale of Two Cities.” Charles Dickens was a famous and successful writer in the 19th-century, England. He was a novelist, a reporter, an essayist, a correspondent, and an editor. His work examines the reality of Victorian life as he knew it. He is famous for novels that include “A Christmas Carol,” and “Oliver Twist,” and “Great Expectations, and my personal favorite, “A Tale of Two Cities.” He read the essays of Joseph Addison, Oliver Goldsmith, and Samuel Johnson, as well as the major 19th-century essayists: Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Walter Savage Landor, and Thomas DeQuincey. “The Ivy Green” Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green, That creepeth o’er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, To pleasure his dainty whim: And the mouldering dust that years have made Is a merry meal for him. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, And a staunch old heart has he. How closely he twineth, how tight he clings, To his friend the huge Oak Tree! And slily he traileth along the ground, And his leaves he gently waves, As he joyously hugs and crawleth round The rich mould of dead men’s graves. Creeping where grim death has been, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. Whole ages have fled and their works decayed, And nations have scattered been; But the stout old Ivy shall never fade, From its hale and hearty green. The brave old plant, in its lonely days, Shall fatten upon the past: For the stateliest building man can raise, Is the Ivy’s food at last. Creeping on, where time has been, A rare old plant is the Ivy green.