WEATHER REPORT

The home thermometer last night
Went down to 4 and stayed,
Doing all this by Fahrenheit
And not by Centigrade;
Subtracting 4 from 32
One estimates with ease
We had a frost the whole night through
Of 28 degrees.

The war has spoilt a lot of things;
We’re full of “rights” and “wrongs;”
And almost everybody sings
The most appalling songs;
But what infuriates me most
Is simply that I’ve lost
The opportunity to boast
About my “second” frost.

For in the happy days of old
One scanned the news to see
If Littlehampton were as cold
Or Looe as hot, as we.
But now comparison is gone–
Not least of Hitler’s crimes
Is that he put the kybosh on
The weather in The Times.

Ah me! those spirited reports
(“Sunny A.M., but cool”)
From all the popular resorts–
E.g., from Pontypool.
How much allure a breakfast lacks
Unable to begin
With temperatures min. and max.,
Particularly min.

I crack the still unrationed egg,
I carve the rationed ham,
I know it’s cold in Winnipeg
And cold in Amsterdam.
I munch the sparsely-buttered toast,
I stir the tasteless tea,
But know not (what intrigues me most)
The min. at Brightlingsea.

The home thermometer went down
To 4; it really did.
Can Colchester or Camden Town
Produce a lower bid?
Thermometers at Heckmondwike
Of similar design–
Can they show mins. remotely like
This minimum of mine?

Penarth and Peebles, what of them?
They have their frosty spells;
And doubtless it is “cold A.M.”
At Troon and Tunbridge Wells;
It may be that Aldershot
A heat wave has begun.
I doubt it.  But it matters not–
The war has spoilt the fun.

So, just to keep the record right,
I’ll mention it once more.
The home thermometer last night
Went firmly down to 4.
Which 4 must stand alone.  Ah, me!
The triumph I have missed with
No hopeful 5 from Bridge of Dee,
No 6 from Aberystwyth!

 ~ A. A. Milne, 1940

I have been on a bit of a World War II poetry jag – if you can call two books of war poetry a jag.  One of the two was A. A. Milne’s Behind the Lines, a sort of memoir-in-verse of the first nine months of the war.  Milne structures the book as a book entirely of poetry, with some end notes – no more than a paragraph – after each poem, in case the reader wants to know what was on his mind when he was writing the verses in question.  (In the introduction, Milne helpfully points out that if one is in a hurry, one can skip the explanations.  Because sometimes you just HAVE to get to the next poem, amirite?!)  Anyway, “Weather Report” is my favorite of the bunch, because it strikes me as The Most English Thing Ever, to take things like rationing and blackouts in stride but to draw the line at not being able to engage in forecast-related one-upsmanship with the next village over.  Don’t worry too much about Milne, though.  In his notes after “Weather Report,” he gleefully notes that he has two thermometers that often show different readings (which he speculates might be due to one being closer to sea level? or newer?) so he is still able to talk temperatures with the gardener.  I know you were concerned.