Are You Content?

I call on those that call me son,
Grandson, or great-grandson,
On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts,
To judge what I have done.
Have I, that put it into words,
Spoilt what old loins have sent?
Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content.
He that in Sligo at Drumcliff
Set up the old stone Cross,
That red-headed rector in County Down,
A good man on a horse,
Sandymount Corbets, that notable man
Old William Pollexfen,
The smuggler Middleton, Butlers far back,
Half legendary men.
Infirm and aged I might stay
In some good company,
I who have always hated work,
Smiling at the sea,
Or demonstrate in my own life
What Robert Browning meant
By an old hunter talking with Gods;
But I am not content.

An Old Man's Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him 
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, 
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. 
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze 
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.        
What kept him from remembering what it was 
That brought him to that creaking room was age. 
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss. 
And having scared the cellar under him 
In clomping there, he scared it once again        
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night, 
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar 
Of trees and crack of branches, common things, 
But nothing so like beating on a box. 
A light he was to no one but himself        
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what, 
A quiet light, and then not even that. 
He consigned to the moon, such as she was, 
So late-arising, to the broken moon 
As better than the sun in any case        
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof, 
His icicles along the wall to keep; 
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt 
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted, 
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.        
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house, 
A farm, a countryside, or if he can, 
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

To a Skylark (1825)

          ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
          Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
          Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
          Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
          Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
          Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

          Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
          A privacy of glorious light is thine;
          Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
          Of harmony, with instinct more divine;                      10
          Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
          True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

Image is Turner's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1823)

A "childe" is a youth on the career track to become a knight. Our Massachusetts Maine friend Sipp brought Byron's (George Gordon, Lord Byron) masterpiece Childe Harold to mind with his killer quote from Canto 3 of the epic:

He who, grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him; nor below
Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife
Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife
With airy images, and shapes which dwell
Still unimpaired, though old, in the soul's haunted cell.

The entire narrative poem is here, but is best read in dead tree form. Better yet, read out loud. Lord Byron, like Dylan and Sippican and a bunch of other special people, has (or is, or was) an Old Soul - regardless of age. It's a gift - or maybe a curse. Maybe both.

Not Ideas About The Thing But The Thing Itself

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.

That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

Imagining It 

At eighteen, in Paris,
I just woke up out of a dream
just before dawn, and stepped through the long window
from my cold room with its red silk walls.
Shivering a little in my dressing gown,
I leaned on the balustrade
and, look, overnight a light snow had fallen;
no car had driven over it yet, it lay in the street
as white, as innocent, as snow on the open fields.

Then something approached with a calm rhythm
of hoof-beats made softer by the snow, the sound
of a quiet heart. It was a heaped-up wood cart
pulled by a gray horse who walked along slowly,
head down, while the driver
sat at the back of one shaft and hunched over
to light his cigarette.

                                  From above, I saw clearly
the lit match in the old man's cupped hands, its glow
on his long jaw, the small well of flame
between his living palms like the flare
of the soul in his body. He went on
down the street, and the sky went on
growing lighter, and I saw how he left
his dark tracks behind him on the whiteness
of the snow, just the lines of the two wheels,
slightly wavering, and the dints of the horse's hooves
between them, a writing in an undiscovered
language, something whose meaning
we feel sure we know, and still can't quite
translate.

                       When I stepped inside again,
I stopped thinking about love for a minute — I thought about it
almost all the time then — and thought instead
about being alive for a while in a world
with cobblestones, new snow, and the unconscious
poem printed by hooves on the maiden street.

Of course I was not yet ready to be grateful.

(Barnes lives in Maine. She is the daughter of Henry Beston, author of The Outermost House - a book that was a mainstay of my family. There is a brief interview with Barnes here, with a listing of her books.)

The Old Flame

My old flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine. It was still
on top of its hill -

Now a red ear of Indian maize
was splashed on the door.
Old Glory with thirteen stripes
hung on a pole. The clapboard
was old-red schoolhouse red.

Inside, a new landlord,
a new wife, a new broom!
Atlantic seaboard antique shop
pewter and plunder
shone in each room.

A new frontier!
No running next door
now to phone the sheriff
for his taxi to Bath
and the State Liquor Store!

No one saw your ghostly
imaginary lover
stare through the window
and tighten
the scarf at his throat.

Health to the new people,
health to their flag, to their old
restored house on the hill!
Everything had been swept bare,
furnished, garnished and aired.

Everything's changed for the best -
how quivering and fierce we were,
there snowbound together,
simmering like wasps
in our tent of books!

Poor ghost, old love, speak
with your old voice
of flaming insight
that kept us awake all night.
In one bed and apart,

we heard the plow
groaning up hill -
a red light, then a blue,
as it tossed off the snow
to the side of the road.

Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The Carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Sonnet XLIV

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan;
   Receiving nought by elements so slow
   But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

In Memoriam A.H.H.

(It's a lengthy piece, with many oft-quoted lines, which Tennyson wrote over 17 years. The remarkable work begins like this - the whole poem is here)

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
    Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
    By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
    Thou madest Life in man and brute;
    Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
    Thou madest man, he knows not why,
    He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,
    The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
    Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day;
    They have their day and cease to be:
    They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;
    For knowledge is of things we see;
    And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
    But more of reverence in us dwell;
    That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight;
    We mock thee when we do not fear:
    But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
    What seem’d my worth since I began;
    For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,
    Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
    I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
    Confusions of a wasted youth;
    Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.

Lines Inscribed upon A Cup Formed from a Skull, 1808                       

                  Start not - nor deem my spirit fled;
                             In me behold the only skull
                         From which, unlike a living head,
                             Whatever flows is never dull.

                         I lived, I loved, I quaffed, like thee:
                             I died:  let earth my bones resign;
                         Fill up - thou canst not injure me;
                             The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

                         Better to hold the sparkling grape,
                             Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy
                                 brood;
                         And circle in the goblet's shape
                             The drink of gods, than reptile's food.

                         Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
                             In aid of others' let me shine;
                         And when, alas!  our brains are gone,
                             What nobler substitute than wine?

                         Quaff while thou canst: another race,
                             When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
                         May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
                             And rhyme and revel with the dead.

                         Why not?  since through life's little day
                             Our heads such sad effects produce;
                         Redeemed from worms and wasting clay,
                             This chance is theirs, to be of use. 
  
 
Mad, bad, and dangerous, he understood what women wanted.

Every Grain of Sand (1981)

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other time it's only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

Here's Emmylou Harris singing it:

There is a new translation out of Rilke's poetry, but this isn't from it:

The Song of the Widow

In the beginning life was good to me;
it held me warm and gave me courage.
That this is granted all while in their youth,
how could I then have known of this.
I never knew what living was---.
But suddenly it was just year on year,
no more good, no more new, no more wonderful.
Life had been torn in two right down the middle.

That was not his fault nor mine
since both of us had nothing but patience;
but death has none.
I saw him coming (how rotten he looked),
and I watched him as he took and took:
and nothing was mine.

What, then, belonged to me; was mine, my own?
Was not even this utter wretchedness
on loan to me by fate?
Fate does not only claim your happiness,
it also wants your pain back and your tears
and buys the ruin as something useless, old.

Fate was present and acquired for a nothing
every expression my face is capable of,
even to the way I walk.
The daily diminishing of me went on
and after I was emptied fate gave me up
and left me standing there, abandoned.


Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

A Drink With Something In it

There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth--
I think that perhaps it's the gin.

Harvard drop-out Nash was a master of the fine art of doggerel, aka light verse. It is a much-underappreciated art form. Thanks, reader MM. Always enjoyed him.

Cædmon’s Hymn, Anglo-Saxon 737 AD

Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard
metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes
eci dryctin or astelidæ
he aerist scop aelda barnum
heben til hrofe haleg scepen.
tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
firum foldu frea allmectig

Cædmon’s Hymn, Modern English

Now let me praise the keeper of Heaven’s kingdom,
the might of the Creator, and his thought,
the work of the Father of glory, how each of wonders
the Eternal Lord established in the beginning.
He first created for the sons of men
Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator,
then Middle-earth the keeper of mankind,
the Eternal Lord, afterwards made,
the earth for men, the Almighty Lord.

(from Right Wing Prof's post we linked yesterday)

The House on the Hill

They are all gone away,
   The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
   The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.

Nor is there one to-day
   To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.

Why is it then we stray
   Around the sunken sill?
They are all gone away,

And our poor fancy-play
   For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay
   In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer (from Leaves of Grass, 1892)

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:



So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Thou and I

Joyful the moment when we sat in the bower, Thou and I;
In two forms and with two faces - with one soul, Thou and I.

The colour of the garden and the song of the birds give the elixir of immortality
The instant we come into the orchard, Thou and I.

The stars of Heaven come out to look upon us -
We shall show the moon herself to them, Thou and I.

Thou and I, with no 'Thou' or 'I', shall become one through our tasting;
Happy, safe from idle talking, Thou and I.

The spirited parrots of heaven will envy us -
When we shall laugh in such a way, Thou and I.

This is stranger, that Thou and I, in this corner here...
Are both in one breath here and there - Thou and I.

Rumi was a poet, scholar and mystic, and the inspiration for the Whirling Dervishes (which we saw in Turkey a few years ago).

When forty winters

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer, "This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,"
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

David Warren posted on this sonnet in July.

Elegy for Jane (My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,

A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.

Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.

My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.

One Train May Hide Another

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line--
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may hide another--one colonial may hide another,
One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath
may hide another bath
As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.
One idea may hide another: Life is simple
Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein
One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory
One invention may hide another invention,
One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.
One dark red, or one blue, or one purple--this is a painting
By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,
These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin
May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician
Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but
One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.
A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides
Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in
A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag
Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it.
In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by the mother's
And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker
May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee
Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love or the same love
As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers
The better love lingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts"
Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that"
And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the Garden of Eden
Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.
Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.
When you come to something, stop to let it pass
So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,
Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory
Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,
The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading
A Sentimental Journey look around
When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see
If it is standing there, it should be, stronger
And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore
May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk
May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and
One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs
Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the foot of a tree
With one and when you get up to leave there is another
Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,
One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man
May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.
You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It can be important
To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.

Questions

If on a summer afternoon a man should find himself
in love with only one woman
in a sea of women, all the others mere half-naked
swimmers and floaters, and if that one woman
therefore is clad in radiance
while the mere others are burdened by their bikinis,
then what does he do with a world 
suddenly so small, the once unbiased sun
shining solely on her?  And if that afternoon
turns dark, fat clouds like critics dampening
the already wet sea, does the man run -
he normally would - for cover, or does he dive
deeper in, get so wet he is beyond wetness
in an underworld utterly hers? And when
he comes up for air, as he must,
when he dries off and dresses up, as he must,
how will the pedestrian streets feel?
What will the street lamps illuminate? How exactly
will he hold her so that everyone can see
she doesn't belong to him, and he won't let go?

"Questions" by Stephen Dunn, from Local Visitations. © W.W. Norton & company, 2003. Short bio of Stephen Dunn here.

Come live with me and be my love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, 
Woods or steepy mountain yields. 

And we will sit upon the rocks, 
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, 
By shallow rivers to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 

And I will make thee beds of roses 
And a thousand fragrant posies, 
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; 

A gown made of the finest wool 
Which from our pretty lambs we pull; 
Fair lined slippers for the cold, 
With buckles of the purest gold; 

A belt of straw and ivy buds, 
With coral clasps and amber studs: 
And if these pleasures may thee move, 
Come live with me and be my love. 

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing 
For thy delight each May morning: 
If these delights thy mind may move, 
Then live with me and be my love.

Photo:  If you have areas you want mowed instead of just hayed once a year, the trick is to get the kids on the mini-John Deere. They love it. It's easy to teach them how to jump off if the thing starts to tip over on a steep, angled, rocky New England hill - just tip it over when they are on it, and they will figger it out. Child abuse, no doubt. This birch hill looks good as a distant vista from ye olde farmhouse kitchen window when the top of the hill is mowed occasionally. We prefer to keep most of the fields only mowed once-yearly, for the wildlife and because I know in my heart that God loves meadows - but not lawns.

Yes, that is in the Berkshires and yes, we have big tractors too. Ford and Farmall. I'd never take that old dainty-front-footed Farmall on a steep, angled Yankee pasture hill, tho. The old Ford has a nice, comfortable wide stance.

Our Saturday feature is a couple of days late. I think it was in Pogo where somebody said "What is so rare as a steak in June?"

Two verses from Part 1 of James Russell Lowell's (1819-1891) religious epic The Vision of Sir Launfal:

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the Devil’s booth are all things sold
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we earn with a whole soul’s tasking:
‘T is heaven alone that is given away,
‘T is only God may be had for the asking;
There is no price set on the lavish summer,
And June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there ’s never a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest...

Ephemera

"YOUR eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning."

And then She:
"Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!"

Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
"Passion has often worn our wandering hearts."
The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once

A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him:and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
In bosom and hair.

"Ah, do not mourn," he said,
"That we are tired, for other loves await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell."

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε,
πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προῒαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή·
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.

h/t, Chequerboard

Love's Secret

Never seek to tell thy love,   

  Love that never told can be;   

For the gentle wind doth move   

  Silently, invisibly.   

  

I told my love, I told my love,

  I told her all my heart,   

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.   

  Ah! she did depart!   

  

Soon after she was gone from me,   

  A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:   

  He took her with a sigh.

Hermion's little-known verse was discovered buried in many feet of rubble beneath the ruins of the Alexandria Library in 1872 by a team of British archeologists sponsored by Chauncey, Lord Wizzingham. The singed Greek papyrus fragments were difficult to decipher without modern techniques. They appear to be a poetry instructional text, with a series of samples of the basic forms of ancient Greek lyric poetry. Most of the text has been lost.

His samples are considered to be derivative and unoriginal, cliche-ridden, and thus perhaps a collection of traditional songs and thus of little more literary interest than "The Happy Birthday Song" and "For he's a jolly good fellow." My own translations from the ancient Greek, with my labels for the lyrical types:

Skolion (a song of gratitude to a host)

Praise to our host, who provides the best of wine
and the finest oils from his orchards and herbs from his fields.
Hail to our host who provides us with the finest fishes and meats.
We will remember this feast, and may the Gods bless it.
May the Gods bless it well. Today our host is our Lord.
Today our host is our Lord. Praise to our generous host today.

Erotikon (a love song)

I open your flower like a lily, and the lily
opens for me. Anointed with the scented oils
you smell so sweet my tongue must taste your sweetness,
sweet maid of Paros.
If you only let me, I will be with the Gods.
I will be like the Gods in their heavens, if you let me come close.
I will even unsheath my nimble sword for you, dear lady,
if you show me the kindness I long for.
Show me kindness. Show me kindness.

Enkomion (a praise poem for a person)

Dear Heraklon, your arm is strong in battle,
your judgement wise in council,
your children lovely and compliant, your wife
an excellent and dutiful mate. Your concubines
are the most lovely and affectionate; your slaves
gracious and attentive to every need.
There is gold and wheat and oil in your storerooms.
How can I, a humble man,
find the words to praise your virtues?

Hymenaios (wedding song)

We sing the joyful nuptial song for you.
We sing the joyful nuptial song for you.
May be you blessed by the Gods with strong sons.
May you be blessed by the Gods with lovely daughters.
May you prosper. May you prosper. 
May the Gods take delight in this occasion.
May the Gods take delight in this occasion.

Hymn (a praise song to the gods)

Let us praise the Gods who dwell among the clouds,
The Gods of the high peaks, the Gods among the clouds.
Olympians, smile on our actions. Olympians, smile on our actions.
When we seek the good, you smile on our actions.
When we please your wishes, you smile on our actions.
Strengthen our hands and arms, and smile on our actions.
Fatten our animals, and enrich our harvests.
Infect our enemies with disease, and enrich our harvests.
Defeat our enemies, and smile on our harsh actions.
We will forever praise you. We will forever praise you.

Dithyramb (a song for Dionysus)

Lord of the dance, Lord of the wines,
Lord of the pure wines, Lord of the scented wines,
Lord of the wild hills, Lord of the high thyme-scented hills,
Lord who rides the snarling panther to our festivities.
Join us in our festivities, Dionysus.
Join us in our festivities, Dionysus.
You are the horned bull, the young women hunger for your presence.
The old women are made jubilant and youthful by your presence.
Drink the wine we bring, the wine we made, the fragrant wine we offer,
the wine which makes us dance,
the wine which makes us amorous,
the wine which makes us run and dance.

Threnos (a funeral song)

Archemion, you have travelled from us.
Archemion, you have travelled from us.
With our funeral song, we will remember you.
With our funeral song, we will remember you.
With our funeral song, the Gods will remember you.
The Gods will watch your travels, and remember your good works.

Paean (a hymn to Apollo sung around the altar)

Lord Apollo, it is our joy to celebrate you.
Lord Apollo, it is our joy to celebrate you.
The source of our illumination and wisdom,
our lamp and our light, our lamp and our light,
our lamp in the evening and our light by day,
the Prince of Olympus, the Prince of Olympus.
Our joy is to bring our gifts to your altar.
Our joy is to bring our sacrifices to your sacred altar.

Image: A Bell-Krater (c. 440 BC), used for mixing wine with water and flavorings (which the Dionysians refused to do - they drank their wine unmixed to get their holy buzz on).

We only have fragments of Archilochus' lyric poetry (ie accompanied by a lyre), which have been found over the years on shreds of papyrus. Here are a few of those fragments:

- My one great talent lies in making
those who wrong me suffer horribly.

- I  am the servant of Ares, Lord of Battle,
and I know the lovely gift of the Muses.

- Some Thracian is delighted with the shield, which beside a bush
I left unwillingly, an excellent and perfect armament.
Myself I saved! Why should that shield be important to me?
The hell with it! I'll get another, just as good.

- Not many bowstrings will be stretched nor slingshot
flying thick, when Ares makes his killing field
on the plain. Then it will be the grievous work of the sword.
They are the Lords of this kind of battle -
The spear-famed Lords of Euboea.

- I long for a fight with you, just as a thirsty man longs for drink.

- The fox knows many things,
but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

- There is no country fair and desirable
or lovely, like that around the banks of the Siris.

- I have no interest in the business of Gyges and all his gold,
nor has such envy ever grasped me, nor do I feel envious
of the works of the gods, nor have I love for high rulership,
for all these things are very far from my eyes.

Archilochus, the first great Greek poet we know after Homer and Hesiod, is thought to have been a soldier, maybe a mercenary, possibly of the nobility - and the inventor if iambic verse. He was a master of meter, and seems to have been a cranky and vengeful SOB who never got over not being permitted to marry the gal he wanted. His vengeance drove her family to suicide. He died in battle, as he no doubt would have wanted to do. Not the type to die in a bed.

Here's a brief piece on his poetry.

Here's a brief bit on Greek lyric poetry.

Here are the types of Greek lyric poetry. Most names quite familiar to us.

Wellfleet: The House (1948)

Ars Poetica (h/t, Vanderleun for finding the source of my quote)

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown -

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind -

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea -

A poem should not mean
But be.

Dream Song 45: He stared at ruin

He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back.
He thought they was old friends. He felt on the stair
where her papa found them bare
they became familiar. When the papers were lost
rich with pals' secrets, he thought he had the knack
of ruin. Their paths crossed

and once they crossed in jail; they crossed in bed;
and over an unsigned letter their eyes met,
and in an Asian city
directionless & lurchy at two & three,
or trembling to a telephone's fresh threat,
and when some wired his head

to reach a wrong opinion, 'Epileptic'.
But he noted now that: they were not old friends.
He did not know this one.
This one was a stranger, come to make amends
for all the imposters, and to make it stick.
Henry nodded, un-.

My Last Duchess (1842)

That's my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
That depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much" or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush,at least. She thanked men - good! but thanked
Somehow - I know not how - as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech - (which I have not) - to make your will
Quite clear to such a one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss
Or there exceed the mark"- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse
- E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat, 
The Count, your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.

Another Browning dramatic monologue. This poem is in every high school anthology, but it still knocks me out. The Duke of Ferrara speaks throughout, during his negotiations for his next marriage, and implies that he had his last duchess murdered, or put away. She was "made too soon glad." I think the "Notice Neptune" bit says it all.

Photo is a Theo duchess.

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven -
All's right with the world!

Those famous lines are from Browning's 1841 Pippa Passes. It's Pippa's song. Pippa is a silk mill worker in Asolo, and has three holidays per year. The poem goes through the morning, noon, evening and night of Pippa's day off. She treasures her precious free time. This is from "Morning":

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,
A mite of my twelve-hours’ treasure,
The least of thy gazes or glances,
(Be they grants thou art bound to, or gifts above measure)
One of thy choices, or one of thy chances,
(Be they tasks God imposed thee, or freaks at thy pleasure)
—My Day, if I squander such labour or leisure,
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me!
Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing,
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good—
Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going,
As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood—
All shall be mine! But thou must treat me not
As the prosperous are treated, these who live
At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot,
In readiness to take what thou wilt give,
And free to let alone what thou refusest;
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest
Me, who am only Pippa,—old-year’s sorrow,
Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow—
Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow
Sufficient strength of thee for new-year’s sorrow.
All other men and women that this earth
Belongs to, who all days alike possess,
Make general plenty cure particular dearth,
Get more joy, one way, if another, less:
Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven
What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven,—
Sole light that helps me through the year thy sun’s!
Try, now! Take Asolo’s Four Happiest Ones—
And let thy morning rain on that superb
Great haughty Ottima; can rain disturb
Her Sebald’s homage? All the while thy rain
Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window-pane,
He will but press the closer, breathe more warm
Against her cheek; how should she mind the storm?
And, morning past, if mid-day shed a gloom
O’er Jules and Phene,—what care bride and groom
Save for their dear selves? ’Tis their marriage-day;
And while they leave church, and go home their way,
Hand clasping hand,—within each breast would be
Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of thee!
Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve
With mist,—will Luigi and his mother grieve—
The Lady and her child, unmatched, forsooth,
She in her age, as Luigi in his youth,
For true content? The cheerful town, warm, close,
And safe, the sooner that thou art morose,
Receives them! And yet once again, out-break
In storm at night on Monsignor, they make
Such stir about,—whom they expect from Rome
To visit Asolo, his brother’s home,
And say here masses proper to release
A soul from pain,—what storm dares hurt his peace?
Calm would he pray, with his own thoughts to ward
Thy thunder off, nor want the angels’ guard!
But Pippa—just one such mischance would spoil
Her day that lightens the next twelve-month’s toil
At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil!
And here I let time slip for nought!
Aha, you foolhardy sunbeam—caught
With a single splash from my ewer!
You that would mock the best pursuer,
Was my basin over-deep?
One splash of water ruins you asleep,
And up, up fleet your brilliant bits
Wheeling and counterwheeling,
Reeling, broken beyond healing—
Now grow together on the ceiling!
That will task your wits!
Whoever quenched fire first, hoped to see
Morsel after morsel flee
As merrily, as giddily . . . 
Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on,
Where settles by degrees the radiant cripple?
Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon?
New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes’ nipple,
Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk bird’s poll!
Be sure if corals, branching ’neath the ripple
Of ocean, bud there,—fairies watch unroll
Such turban-flowers; I say, such lamps disperse
Thick red flame through that dusk green universe!
        I am queen of thee, floweret;
        And each fleshy blossom
        Preserve I not—(safer
        Than leaves that enbower it,
        Or shells that embosom)
        —From weevil and chafer?
        Laugh through my pane, then; solicit the bee;
        Gibe him, be sure; and, in midst of thy glee,
        Love thy queen, worship me!

—Worship whom else? For am I not, this day,
Whate’er I please? What shall I please to-day?
My morning, noon, eve, night—how spend my day?
To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk,
The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk:
        But, this one day, I have leave to go,
        And play out my fancy’s fullest games;
        I may fancy all day—and it shall be so—

The entire piece is here. Yes, Browning specialized in the dramatic monologue. I can easily imagine Pippa as a one-person stage performance. Off topic, but I always got a kick out of the name of Pippa Passes, KY, aka Caney Creek.

Love's Deity

I long to talk with some old lover's ghost,
    Who died before the god of love was born.
I cannot think that he, who then loved most,
    Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produced a destiny,
And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,
    I must love her that loves not me.

Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,
    Nor he in his young godhead practised it.
But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
    His office was indulgently to fit
Actives to passives. Correspondency
Only his subject was; it cannot be
    Love, till I love her, who loves me.

But every modern god will now extend
    His vast prerogative as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
    All is the purlieu of the god of love.
O! were we waken'd by this tyranny
To ungod this child again, it could not be
    I should love her, who loves not me.

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,
    As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love might make me leave loving, or might try
    A deeper plague, to make her love me too;
Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see.
Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,
    If she whom I love, should love me.

A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts (1937)

Every blade of grass is a study;
And to produce two,
Where there was but one,
Is both a profit and a pleasure.
And not grass alone;
But soils, seeds, and seasons
Hedges, ditches, and fences,
Draining, droughts, and irrigation—
Plowing, hoeing, and harrowing—
Reaping, mowing, and threshing—
Saving crops, pests of crops, diseases of crops,
And what will prevent or cure them—
Implements, utensils, and machines,
Their relative merits,
And [how] to improve them—
Hogs, horses, and cattle—
Sheep, goats, and poultry—
Trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, and flowers—
The thousand things
Of which these are specimens—
Each a world of study within itself.

That is from a Lincoln speech to the Wisconsin Agricultural Society, rearranged as free verse. It works. It sounds like Walt Whitman.

Prof. Sutherland makes the point that folks like Shakespeare and Milton were seeking neither fame nor personal glory. All Shakespeare wanted was to make enough money to retire as a country gentleman as his father had been before coming onto hard times. He would be astonished to learn that people read still his plays and sonnets - and that they read them as "literature," much less that they are read at all. Plays were the movies of their time. They were not written to be read. And John Milton, a successful  London businessman, sought only to glorify God - and to play some politics - through his writing hobby.

Talent will out. It bursts out, when it exists. Will threw these famous lines into a pensive, melancholy soliloquy into the mouth of a minor role (Jaques) in a comedy (As You Like It).

Interesting note from a piece on the Globe Theater: "Above the main entrance of the Globe was a crest displaying Hercules bearing the globe on his shoulders together with the motto "Totus mundus agit histrionem" (the whole world is a playhouse)." Also, theaters had no toilet facilities. Good grief.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Image: The Globe Theater

She was a phantom of delight (1804)

SHE was a Phantom of delight
          When first she gleamed upon my sight;
          A lovely Apparition, sent
          To be a moment's ornament;
          Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
          Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
          But all things else about her drawn
          From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
          A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
          To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.                          

          I saw her upon nearer view,
          A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
          Her household motions light and free,
          And steps of virgin-liberty;
          A countenance in which did meet
          Sweet records, promises as sweet;
          A Creature not too bright or good
          For human nature's daily food;
          For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
          Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.             

          And now I see with eye serene
          The very pulse of the machine;
          A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
          A Traveller between life and death;
          The reason firm, the temperate will,
          Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
          A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
          To warn, to comfort, and command;
          And yet a Spirit still, and bright
          With something of angelic light.                            
                                                             

Our post on A P-51 named February moved us to post Magee's well-known sonnet, High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

RCAF Spitfire pilot Magee, an American, was killed in an airplane accident during the Battle of Britain, 1941, age 19. He told his mother that the final verse came to him at 30,000 feet, and that he finished the poem on his way down.