Last week, the Guardian newspaper was giving away a seies of poetry pamphlets. There were selections from T S Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and Philip Larkin, among others, but I was dismayed to note that they did not include Dennis Beerpint.

The twee versifier has been rather quiet of late, so I was pleased to learn that a new book is in the works. For the last year, apparently, Beerpint has been busy with a project entitled Imperfectly-Remembered Mitteleuropean Folk Songs In Translation. He has collected at least four or five examples, enough for a characteristically slim volume of verse.

Under cover of darkness, Pansy Cradledew smashed her way into Beerpint’s so-called “poetry hut” and managed to steal Gestetnered copies of a couple of the pieces, so we can give readers a sneak preview. The first is called “The Shepherd’s Lament”:

There is a shepherd in the hills / There is a [something] green / But black is the crow in the [something] tree / And lightning blasts the sky / The shepherd’s lass has golden hair / She [something something] milk / But the crow has flown away, my love / And the ducks have left the lake.

Marvellous. And here is the second one, which seems to be untitled:

As I roamed the bosky verdance / Upon a summer morning / [Something something] gravel pits / And O my love was [something]. / Entwined in posies [something something] / I heard the sound of gunfire / Then [something] over by the cowshed / Upon a summer morning. / Tra la la and fol de rol / The geese are all a-[something] / My pig has got his hat on / And I’ll see you in the gloaming.

Fantastic. I expect the editor of the Guardian will be kicking himself that he neglected to include Dennis Beerpint in the series.