Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
This poem is the declaration of the indomitable spirit. The Latin title means "unconquered" and was originally not attached to the poem at its first printing, though it fits perfectly. In the face of all evil and all horror, in the face of death ("the horror of the shade"), the narrator remains and will forever remain unafraid. It's an inspirational, bold, and makes me want to be the best I can be.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
My Days among the Dead are Past - Robert Southey
My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
My thoughts are with the Dead, with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.
My hopes are with the Dead, anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
Rest assured, Robert Southey, your name has not perished in the dust, and with the Dead now, I too converse. The Dead are all around us, their relics being those things they made from which we benefit today. Southey was so moved by this longevity that he'd shed tears of gratitude, according to the second stanza. What this poem is concerned with is the immortality of those who create, and how we can learn from it. It's a simple poem, though effective, and I'm sure we've all felt immensely grateful to the great minds of the past.
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
My thoughts are with the Dead, with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.
My hopes are with the Dead, anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
Rest assured, Robert Southey, your name has not perished in the dust, and with the Dead now, I too converse. The Dead are all around us, their relics being those things they made from which we benefit today. Southey was so moved by this longevity that he'd shed tears of gratitude, according to the second stanza. What this poem is concerned with is the immortality of those who create, and how we can learn from it. It's a simple poem, though effective, and I'm sure we've all felt immensely grateful to the great minds of the past.
Monday, March 9, 2015
A Musical Instrument - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I.
WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.
II.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.
III.
High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a lead indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.
IV.
He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sate by the river.
V.
'This is the way, ' laughed the great god Pan,
(Laughed while he sate by the river,)
'The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.
VI.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.
VII.
Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,-
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.
In Greek mythology, Pan is the god of the wilds, of shepherds, of all things pastoral in nature. He is half goat, having the legs of a goat, similar to a satyr. In this enchanting poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, we follow Pan as he creates a musical instrument out of a reed in a river. Indeed, the name for an instrument made of reeds lined up, blown on, we call a panflute. The imagery throughout the poem is a lovely, detailed account of the process of making the instrument. Where the poem takes a turn is in the last two stanzas, when Pan begins to play his flute.
In the 6th stanza, the lines become rapturous. "Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!" the narrator exclaims. There's a sense of rapture, almost sexual ecstasy at hearing Pan play. The music is "piercing sweet" and "blinding sweet." It's so nice that the sun itself forgets to set, and the whole scene is suspended in time. Then, in the 7th stanza, we move back from the human, sense-oriented point of view.
Pan is no true god, but a half-god, and at his actions "the true gods sigh." To make his music, Pan has uprooted the reed from the river. The "cost and pain" of Pan's actions is how the reed, now a flute, which "grows nevermore again as a reed with the reeds in the river." Despite that beautiful music, the gods see only the destruction of nature.
Personally, I cannot sympathize entirely with the environmentalist and naturalist sentiment of the gods in the 7th stanza. Partly, it is because I am a human and a musician, and I crave the rapturous, sensuous beauty of the music described in the 6th stanza. I cannot understand the gods' point of view about the reed which will never grow again, because more reeds may be planted. Still, I think we're meant to understand that beauty has consequences which we often overlook.
WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.
II.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.
III.
High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a lead indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.
IV.
He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sate by the river.
V.
'This is the way, ' laughed the great god Pan,
(Laughed while he sate by the river,)
'The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.
VI.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.
VII.
Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,-
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.
In Greek mythology, Pan is the god of the wilds, of shepherds, of all things pastoral in nature. He is half goat, having the legs of a goat, similar to a satyr. In this enchanting poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, we follow Pan as he creates a musical instrument out of a reed in a river. Indeed, the name for an instrument made of reeds lined up, blown on, we call a panflute. The imagery throughout the poem is a lovely, detailed account of the process of making the instrument. Where the poem takes a turn is in the last two stanzas, when Pan begins to play his flute.
In the 6th stanza, the lines become rapturous. "Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!" the narrator exclaims. There's a sense of rapture, almost sexual ecstasy at hearing Pan play. The music is "piercing sweet" and "blinding sweet." It's so nice that the sun itself forgets to set, and the whole scene is suspended in time. Then, in the 7th stanza, we move back from the human, sense-oriented point of view.
Pan is no true god, but a half-god, and at his actions "the true gods sigh." To make his music, Pan has uprooted the reed from the river. The "cost and pain" of Pan's actions is how the reed, now a flute, which "grows nevermore again as a reed with the reeds in the river." Despite that beautiful music, the gods see only the destruction of nature.
Personally, I cannot sympathize entirely with the environmentalist and naturalist sentiment of the gods in the 7th stanza. Partly, it is because I am a human and a musician, and I crave the rapturous, sensuous beauty of the music described in the 6th stanza. I cannot understand the gods' point of view about the reed which will never grow again, because more reeds may be planted. Still, I think we're meant to understand that beauty has consequences which we often overlook.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
December 30 - Richard Brautigan
At 1:03 in the morning a fart
smells like a marriage between
an avocado and a fish head.
I have to get out of bed
to write this down without
my glasses on.
Honestly, I chose this poem because it made me laugh, and because of how easily to relate to I found it. Those silly thoughts that sometimes flit into the mind in the early hours of the morning, those bizarrisms of which we're all capable; this poem captures it nicely. Presumably having cracked a particularly nasty fart, Brautigan remarked on its smell to himself and liked the turn of phrase so much that he had to get out, without his glasses, even, and write it down. I've had similar thoughts in similar situations (off the top of my head, I can remember comparing a fart to a war crime and wondering if I just broke the Geneva convention) though I've never written them down. Maybe I should. Brautigan's certainly brought me a laugh. It's nice for poetry to be gross sometimes. It doesn't always need to be about beauty or truth. Besides, I'm pretty sure fart jokes have been funny since time immemorial.
A friend of mine hit on something interesting with this poem. "That sounds like the journal entry of an insomniac" was his comment. I think that's a cool way to look at it, and it fits, what with the very specific time and date annotation.
smells like a marriage between
an avocado and a fish head.
I have to get out of bed
to write this down without
my glasses on.
Honestly, I chose this poem because it made me laugh, and because of how easily to relate to I found it. Those silly thoughts that sometimes flit into the mind in the early hours of the morning, those bizarrisms of which we're all capable; this poem captures it nicely. Presumably having cracked a particularly nasty fart, Brautigan remarked on its smell to himself and liked the turn of phrase so much that he had to get out, without his glasses, even, and write it down. I've had similar thoughts in similar situations (off the top of my head, I can remember comparing a fart to a war crime and wondering if I just broke the Geneva convention) though I've never written them down. Maybe I should. Brautigan's certainly brought me a laugh. It's nice for poetry to be gross sometimes. It doesn't always need to be about beauty or truth. Besides, I'm pretty sure fart jokes have been funny since time immemorial.
A friend of mine hit on something interesting with this poem. "That sounds like the journal entry of an insomniac" was his comment. I think that's a cool way to look at it, and it fits, what with the very specific time and date annotation.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
West Yorkshire Through a Coach Window in Late Autumn - Chris Hart
Mackerel sun squares
fast passing
brinded banded clouds
blue and white
light checkering
checkerboard hedges
edged green
grass fields,
fallow or full,
fall in bloom,
womb of earth,
last birth before
harvest
rest
I sigh
and think of you.
This poem, as the title might suggest, was written as I took a coach (since we're talking and writing in England, may as well say that instead of bus, right?) from Leeds to London last November. I still consider it a fragment, and will revisit it at some point, I think. I'm not sure about the last two lines, and I think I may want to add another stanza which reflects the bus, because I'm not sure I quite captured the moving nature of the landscape when viewed at motorway speeds. As it stands, I tried to create a very fast moving poem, by using similar sounding words to begin and end every line. White light, checkering checkerboards, etc. I think it mostly worked, and the landscape did briefly look like a second spring to me, as the last late fields were ready for harvesting. It was very beautiful, and reminded me pretty strongly of my own Connecticut homeland, which was comforting to me, as at the time I wrote this poem, I had been away for over 16 months.
I'm not sure if this poem is a success, but I can never be the one to judge that. That's for you, reader, so I hope that the poem can stand on its own merit in absence of my explanation.
fast passing
brinded banded clouds
blue and white
light checkering
checkerboard hedges
edged green
grass fields,
fallow or full,
fall in bloom,
womb of earth,
last birth before
harvest
rest
I sigh
and think of you.
This poem, as the title might suggest, was written as I took a coach (since we're talking and writing in England, may as well say that instead of bus, right?) from Leeds to London last November. I still consider it a fragment, and will revisit it at some point, I think. I'm not sure about the last two lines, and I think I may want to add another stanza which reflects the bus, because I'm not sure I quite captured the moving nature of the landscape when viewed at motorway speeds. As it stands, I tried to create a very fast moving poem, by using similar sounding words to begin and end every line. White light, checkering checkerboards, etc. I think it mostly worked, and the landscape did briefly look like a second spring to me, as the last late fields were ready for harvesting. It was very beautiful, and reminded me pretty strongly of my own Connecticut homeland, which was comforting to me, as at the time I wrote this poem, I had been away for over 16 months.
I'm not sure if this poem is a success, but I can never be the one to judge that. That's for you, reader, so I hope that the poem can stand on its own merit in absence of my explanation.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
[On a branch] - Kobayashi Issa
Translated by Jane Hirshfield
On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.
I posted a haiku by Issa just a few days ago, and I was captivated to the point where I had to look up another. What I like about these haiku are how remarkably alike they are to later Imagist poems and other forms of early modernism which merely present a scene without attaching any sort of emotional attachment or moral lesson to them. The scene isn't romanticized, but it certainly is Romantic, but without any of the grand emotion that goes along with that movement. What we're left with a lovely scene, a clear image, and a chirping sound. It's completely wonderful.
On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.
I posted a haiku by Issa just a few days ago, and I was captivated to the point where I had to look up another. What I like about these haiku are how remarkably alike they are to later Imagist poems and other forms of early modernism which merely present a scene without attaching any sort of emotional attachment or moral lesson to them. The scene isn't romanticized, but it certainly is Romantic, but without any of the grand emotion that goes along with that movement. What we're left with a lovely scene, a clear image, and a chirping sound. It's completely wonderful.
Monday, March 2, 2015
[After great pain, a formal feeling comes-] - Emily Dickinson
After great pain, a formal feeling comes -
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -
The stiff heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?
The Feet, mechanical, go round -
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone -
This is the Hour of Lead -
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -
First - Chill - then Stupor - the the letting go -
That heavy moment after emotional upheaval seems to transcend all time, settling into an almost crystalline ("Quartz" like, in this poem) moment, apart from place, time, making us feel wooden, mechanical. We use the phrase "going through the motions" today for a similar feeling. Doing something in absence of meaning or knowledge. Even the memory of these moments after "great pain" is enough to freeze us in place, as described so perfectly in the last stanza. It is the "Hour of Lead." When we remember this pain, if we even survive it to begin with, it is like recollecting snow. It first chills us, puts us into a stupor, and then, finally, we awake, and let go of the pain.
It is a formal feeling, both in that it follows a form and pattern, and also in how there is almost a nobility to such suffering. The language of the poem, though simple, feels somehow elevated by the subject matter. Natural elements are present in their most basic forms. Air. Ground. Quartz. Lead. Cold. There's something elemental about this, and the nerves being the tombs of our emotions and feelings is understandable. That numbness and tingling that comes with heartache and emotional trauma are like a minor death of the self. What a magnificent poem.
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -
The stiff heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?
The Feet, mechanical, go round -
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone -
This is the Hour of Lead -
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -
First - Chill - then Stupor - the the letting go -
That heavy moment after emotional upheaval seems to transcend all time, settling into an almost crystalline ("Quartz" like, in this poem) moment, apart from place, time, making us feel wooden, mechanical. We use the phrase "going through the motions" today for a similar feeling. Doing something in absence of meaning or knowledge. Even the memory of these moments after "great pain" is enough to freeze us in place, as described so perfectly in the last stanza. It is the "Hour of Lead." When we remember this pain, if we even survive it to begin with, it is like recollecting snow. It first chills us, puts us into a stupor, and then, finally, we awake, and let go of the pain.
It is a formal feeling, both in that it follows a form and pattern, and also in how there is almost a nobility to such suffering. The language of the poem, though simple, feels somehow elevated by the subject matter. Natural elements are present in their most basic forms. Air. Ground. Quartz. Lead. Cold. There's something elemental about this, and the nerves being the tombs of our emotions and feelings is understandable. That numbness and tingling that comes with heartache and emotional trauma are like a minor death of the self. What a magnificent poem.
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