Maggie's Farm

Sonnet #30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

The Spider's Web (aka "Natural History")

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

White, never one to waste words, wrote this poem in 1929 as a love letter to his wife. Photo is the Maine boathouse he used as his writing studio.

As I Walked out one Morning

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

"The voice of his generation." Wikipedia has a good summary of Auden's life. A versatile wordsmith and a very smart guy.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.






I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.






I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Who was John Masefield? An interesting life.

From Leaves of Grass, #82, Song of the Open Road

 AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,   
Healthy, free, the world before me,   
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.   

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;   
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,          5
Strong and content, I travel the open road.   

The earth—that is sufficient;   
I do not want the constellations any nearer;   
I know they are very well where they are;   
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.   10

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;   
I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go;   
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;   
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)   


2

You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here;   15
I believe that much unseen is also here.   

Here the profound lesson of reception, neither preference or denial;   
The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not denied;   
The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,   
The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,   20
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town,   
They pass—I also pass—anything passes—none can be interdicted;   
None but are accepted—none but are dear to me.   


3

You air that serves me with breath to speak!   
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!   25
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!   
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!   
I think you are latent with unseen existences—you are so dear to me.   

You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!   
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!   30
You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!   
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!   
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!   
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!   
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!   35
From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me;   
From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.   

The rest of "Song of the Open Road" is below the fold -

Whitman worked on his collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, for almost 50 years, until his death. There were continual revisions and additions to the various editions of the remarkable and somewhat scandalous book. Whitman, like the "I" in the poems, was a self-invented American Everyman, and he fully believed that it was his destiny to write the Great American Epic Poem. It's not one story, but I think he did write an epic in spirit. It's fun to look at, and to read about, this collection of Whitman photos.

Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) wrote "Oh, Susanna," "Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)," "De Camptown Races," "Old Black Joe," "Beautiful Dreamer," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," "Hard Times," - and lots more.

Where would the American songbook be without him? Nowhere.

Here's his Wikipedia listing. It's the usual: made pennies from his songs, died drunk and alone in New York City. Only visited the deep South briefly, once, on his honeymoon.

A list of his songs here.

Photos of his German piano teacher in Pittsburgh, his first guitar, and the first piano he played, here.

Why the Swanee River? It fit the meter and the feeling. Here's "Old Folks at Home," a true heart-breaker of a sentimental popular song, with a lovely simple tune, as Foster wrote it in NYC for the minstrel shows.

And here's Dylan with Foster's Hard Times:

For graduation season.This famous medieval university song is an example of Goliardic Verse, of which Carmina Burana is the best known example. Good lyrics.

Let us live, then, and be glad,
While young life's before us!
After youthful pastime had,
After old age hard and sad,
Earth will slumber o'er us.

Life is brief, and brevity
Briefly shall be ended:
Death comes like a whirlwind strong,
Bears us with his blast along;
None shall be defended.

Live this university,
men that learning nourish;
Live each member of the same,
Long live all that bear its name;
Let them ever flourish!

Live the commonwealth also,
And the men that guide it!
Live our town in strength and health,
Founders, patrons,
by whose wealth we are here provided.

German is pretty close to English, isn't it? Maybe it's because I know a bit of college German. This is fun, with Gaudeamus Igitur eventually, after the drinking song - additional verse below the fold. Let's drink:

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.

Bredon Hill

In summertime on Bredon
 The bells they sound so clear;
 Round both the shires the ring them
 In steeples far and near,
 A happy noise to hear.

 Here of a Sunday morning
 My love and I would lie,
 And see the coloured counties,
 And hear the larks so high
 About us in the sky.

 The bells would ring to call her
 In valleys miles away:
 "Come all to church, good people;
 Good people, come and pray."
 But here my love would stay.

 And I would turn and answer
 Among the springing thyme,
 "Oh, peal upon our wedding,
 And we will hear the chime,
 And come to church in time."

 But when the snows at Christmas
 On Bredon top were strown,
 My love rose up so early
 And stole out unbeknown
 And went to church alone.

 They tolled the one bell only,
 Groom there was none to see,
 The mourners followed after,
 And so to church went she,
 And would not wait for me.

 The bells they sound on Bredon
 And still the steeples hum.
 "Come all to church, good people,"--
 Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
 I hear you, I will come.

Gerard has probably the only other site on the web which would feature Gregory Corso.

Marriage

When I am an Old Horsewoman

When I am an old horsewoman
I shall wear turquoise and diamonds,
And a straw hat that doesn’t suit me
And I shall spend my social security on
white wine and carrots,
And sit in my alleyway of my barn
And listen to my horses breathe.

I will sneak out in the middle of a summer night
And ride the old bay gelding,
Across the moonstruck meadow
If my old bones will allow
And when people come to call, I will smile and nod
As I walk past the gardens to the barn
and show instead the flowers growing
inside stalls fresh-lined with straw.

I will shovel and sweat and wear hay in my hair
as if it were a jewel
And I will be an embarrassment to all
Who will not yet have found the peace in being free
to have a horse as a best friend
A friend who waits at midnight hour
With muzzle and nicker and patient eyes
For the kind of woman I will be
When I am old.

-By Patty Barnhart, originally published in The Arabian Horse World magazine in l992. I have no idea who she is.

Often titled "The Gladiator," the verses are originally from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - Canto IV - Stanza 140.

I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop’d head sinks gradually low—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder shower; and now
The arena swims around him—he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail’d the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not—his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck’d not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother—he, their sire,
Butcher’d to make a Roman holiday—
All this rush’d with his blood—Shall he expire,
And unavenged?—Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

Not many people read poems these days, unless they happen to also be song lyrics. Without the lyre, poetry must make its own music somehow. Furthermore, poetry is written to be heard, not read. Just as with Shakespeare's plays, the words on paper are dead and only voice can bring them to life.

(The reading of Milton's classic On Time on Dr. Merc's sim-gaming post here this morning is a perfect example.)

Here at Maggie's, we have always posted a Saturday Verse, with the general advice to read them out loud. One poem per week, like one masterpiece of art, is about all most people can or are willing to process. We might be tempted to read more poetry if they were Juvenal writing poems from the standpoint of a Roman switch-hitting prostitute servicing both his master and his master's wife to good and profitable effect. The wife first, one might hope.

Via Never Yet Melted's Contemporary Poetry: High-Minded and Evolved, a fine mini-essay by David Yezzi: The Bitter Fool.

Sonnet 46

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie--
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes--
But the defendant doth that plea deny
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impanneled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:
   As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,
   And my heart's right thy inward love of heart.

I like the witty way he echoes the legal metaphor in the convoluted puzzle of words and ideas, which forces your brain to work to untangle it. Crafty guy, was he not? A way with words, too.

Coming (1950)

On longer evenings,
Light, chill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.
It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon —
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.

Lone Dog

I’m a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;
I’m a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;
I’m a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.

I’ll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick, and hate.

Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!

Love's Usury

FOR every hour that thou wilt spare me now,
I will allow,
Usurious god of love, twenty to thee,
When with my brown my gray hairs equal be.
Till then, Love, let my body range, and let
Me travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget,
Resume my last year's relict; think that yet
We'd never met.

Let me think any rival's letter mine,
And at next nine
Keep midnight's promise; mistake by the way
The maid, and tell the lady of that delay;
Only let me love none; no, not the sport
From country grass to confitures of court,
Or city's quelque-choses; let not report
My mind transport.

This bargain's good; if when I'm old, I be
Inflamed by thee,
If thine own honour, or my shame and pain,
Thou covet most, at that age thou shalt gain.
Do thy will then; then subject and degree
And fruit of love, Love, I submit to thee.
Spare me till then; I'll bear it, though she be
One that love me.

An excerpt from The Song of Hiawatha:

You shall hear how Hiawatha
Prayed and fasted in the forest,
Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Not for triumphs in the battle,
And renown among the warriors,
But for profit of the people,
For advantage of the nations.

First he built a lodge for fasting,
Built a wigwam in the forest,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
In the blithe and pleasant Spring-time,
In the Moon of Leaves he built it,
And, with dreams and visions many,
Seven whole days and nights he fasted.

On the first day of his fasting
Through the leafy woods he wandered;
Saw the deer start from the thicket,
Saw the rabbit in his burrow,
Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming,

Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
Rattling in his hoard of acorns,
Saw the pigeon, the Omeme,
Building nests among the pinetrees,
And in flocks the wild-goose, Wawa,
Flying to the fen-lands northward,
Whirring, wailing far above him.
"Master of Life!" he cried, desponding,
"Must our lives depend on these things?"

On the next day of his fasting
By the river's brink he wandered,
Through the Muskoday, the meadow,
Saw the wild rice, Mahnomonee,
Saw the blueberry, Meenahga,
And the strawberry, Odahmin,
And the gooseberry, Shahbomin,
And the grape.vine, the Bemahgut,
Trailing o'er the alder-branches,
Filling all the air with fragrance!
"Master of Life!" he cried, desponding,
"Must our lives depend on these things?"

The entire poem, a collection of Algonquin Indian myths, here, with a little commentary. Read it outloud to your kids or spouse. They will never forget it.

Photo is Augustus Saint-Gaudens' (1848-1907) Hiawatha, marble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

The Chariot (1863)

Because I could not stop for Death -
He kindly stopped for me -
The carriage held but just ourselves -
And immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure, too,
For his civility -

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done -
We passed the fields of grazing grain -
We passed the setting sun -

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground -
The roof was scarcely visible -
The cornice but a mound -

Since then - 'tis centuries - but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity -

Reversibility

Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,
and the vague terrors of the fearful night
That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?

Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?

With hands clenched in the shade and tears of gall,

When Vengeance beats her hellish battle-call,

And makes herself the captain of our fate,

Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?

Angel of health, did you ever know pain,

Which like an exile trails his tired footfalls

The cold length of the white infirmary walls,

With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain?

Angel of health, did ever you know pain?

Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?

Know you the fear of age, the torment vile

Of reading secret horror in the smile

Of eyes your eyes have loved since long ago?

Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?

Angel of happiness, and joy, and light,

Old David would have asked for youth afresh

From the pure touch of your enchanted flesh;

I but implore your prayers to aid my plight,

Angel of happiness, and joy, and light.

T.S. Eliot said "What can a poet do after Swinburne?" Good question, Tommy. Nothing decadent was outside his Victorian imagination, yet everything evocative was within it. Bio of Algernon Charles Swinburne here.

Dolores (Madonna of the Seven Sorrows)

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower;
When these are gone by with their glories,
What shall rest of thee then, what remain,
O mystic and sombre Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain?

Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;
But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,
Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,
And then they would haunt thee in heaven:
Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
That wear out the soul.

O garment not golden but gilded,
O garden where all men may dwell,
O tower not of ivory, but builded
By hands that reach heaven from hell;
O mystical rose of the mire,
O house not of gold but of gain,
O house of unquenchable fire,
Our Lady of Pain!

(the remainder of this amazing poem on continuation page below - take a moment for Algernon -not one of us will ever do better)

Sonnet 55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
   So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
   You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

There's not much of his voice on this reconstruction of an old wax cylinder recording, but Whitman fans will relish
this voice from the past.

America

Song of the Clouds (from The Clouds. This translation by Oscar Wilde)

Cloud-maidens that float on forever,
Dew-sprinkled, fleet bodies, and fair,

Let us rise from our Sire's loud river,

Great Ocean, and soar through the air

To the peaks of the pine-covered mountains where the pines hang as tressed of hair.

Let us seek the watch towers undaunted,

Where the well-watered cornfields abound,

And through murmurs of rivers nymph-haunted,

The songs of the sea-waves resound;

And the sun in the sky never wearies of spreading his radiance around.

 

Let us cast off the haze

Of the mists from our band,

Till with far-seeing gaze

We may look on the land.

 

Cloud-maidens that bring the rain shower,

To the Pallas-loved land let us wing,

To the land of stout heroes and Power,

Where Kekrops was hero and king,

Where honor and silence is given

To the mysteries that none may declare,

Where are gifts to the high gods in heaven

When the house of the gods is laid bare,

Where are lofty roofed temples, and statues well carven and fair;

Where are feasts to the happy immortals

When the sacred procession draws near,

Where garlands make bright the bright portals

At all seasons and months in the year;

And when spring days are here,

Then we tread to the wine-god a measure,

In Bacchanal dance and in pleasure,

'Mid the contests of sweet singing choirs,

And the crash of loud lyres.