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[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.] O mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age Shakes like a reed in the unheeding storm,
Why dost thou curb not thine own sacred rage?
***
Even though Shelley is one of Byron’s greatest friends and admirers, he knows he has a well documented tendency to be a dick . “I’m telling you this as a bro.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Fragment: To Byron
He sang of life, serenely sweet, With, now and then, a deeper note. From some high peak, nigh yet remote, He voiced the world's absorbing beat.
He sang of love when earth was young,
And Love, itself, was in his lays. But, ah, the world, it turned to praise A jingle in a broken tongue.
Mr. Dunbar is relating the singing of love to earlier time of peace when the world was happy.
Paul Laurence Dunbar
The Poet
The two executioners stalk along over the knolls, Bearing two axes with heavy heads shining and wide, And a long limp two-handled saw toothed for cutting great boles, And so they approach the proud tree that bears the death-mark on its side. Jackets doffed they swing axes and chop away just above ground, And the chips fly about and lie white on the moss and fallen leaves;
Till a broad deep gash in the bark is hewn all the way round,
And one of them tries to hook upward a rope, which at last he achieves. The saw then begins, till the top of the tall giant shivers: The shivers are seen to grow greater with each cut than before:
To cut down a tree with an ax, chop it like a beaver would: go all the way around, and then start to go in.
Thomas Hardy
Throwing a Tree
"Ting-a-ling-ding", Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day! Over the river, and through the wood Trot fast, my dapple-gray! Spring over the ground, Like a hunting-hound! For this is Thanksgiving Day. Over the river, and through the wood, And straight through the barn-yard gate. We seem to go Extremely slow,— It is so hard to wait!
Over the river and through the wood— Now grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!
They know they’re almost there because he can see his grandmother’s cap.
Lydia Maria Child
A Boys Thanksgiving Day Over the river and through the wood
But as I said it, swift there passed me by On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly, Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night Some resting flower of yesterday's delight. And once I marked his flight go round and round, As where some flower lay withering on the ground. And then he flew as far as eye could see, And then on tremulous wing came back to me. I thought of questions that have no reply, And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; But he turned first, and led my eye to look At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name, Finding them butterfly weed when I came. The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
The metaphoric imagery of ‘leaping tongue of bloom’ describes the flowers as a mouth and a voice about to speak, symbolising the nature’s capacity to express itself to humanity through beauty, perhaps answering the narrator’s questions. It represents the collaboration of nature and language, which previously yielded “no reply” with the butterfly. Frost is suggesting that we can understand what Morrissey wants us to. It also adds a sense of colour and vitality against the mown landscape – the stream was once hidden but is now revealed because the grass is now short. Sibilant synecdoche ‘scythe had spared’. The spared flowers are a metaphor for the ‘old verities’ of the human condition (research).
Robert Frost
The Tuft of Flowers
If your Nerve, deny you— Go above your Nerve— He can lean against the Grave, If he fear to swerve—
That's a steady posture— Never any bend Held of those Brass arms— Best Giant made—
If your Soul seesaw— Lift the Flesh door— The Poltroon wants Oxygen—
This stanza perhaps an allusion to the funereal custom of pall-bearing . This is the ritual whereby a casket is carried by its, usually very ornate, handles. The arms of the pall-bearers thus become one with the casket, with the deceased. This could be seen to create a ‘giant’; with the coffin as the body and the bearers as the steadied, moving legs. The steady posture could refer to rigor mortis: bodily stiffness after death.
Emily Dickinson
If your Nerve deny you 292
O hushed October morning mild Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; To-morrow's wind, if it be wild Should waste them all The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go
O hushed October morning mild Begin the hours of this day slow Make the day seem to us less brief
Again, Frost speaks to the transitory nature of life, and the ever-changing sphere of nature. I vibe with this on a more personal level because October is my favorite month of the year. I often find myself hoping it will last forever but alas, time doesn’t stop for anyone.
Robert Frost
October
If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
Note that this poem is a sonnet. The volta or ‘turn’ could be said to be at this point, dividing the first eight lines on thoughts of death from the last six lines which hark back to England and the joy that the poet derives from his country. In dying for his country, the soldier has sacrificed himself, become a martyr for England. Brooke suggests that his heart (perhaps soul) has been purified by this sacrifice, in a manner reminiscent of the baptism of blood , and hence has no longer any trace of sin.
Rupert Brooke
The Soldier
The thought passed through my mind That I could start Knocking cans from the shelves and Also rolls of towels, toilet paper Silver foil I could throw oranges, bananas, tomatoes Through the air, I could take cans of Beer from the refrigerated section and Start gulping them, I could pull up Women's skirts, grab their asses I could ram my shopping cart through The plate-glass window...
Then another thought occurred to me: People generally consider something Before they do it
I pushed my cart along... A woman in a checkered skirt was Bending over the pet food section
The second thought comes from his socially constructed ego. He realizes that he is civilized and civilized people do not act this way. After all, society is also our protector. It protects us from hurting ourselves and from hurting others, as well as helping to improve our overall lives. If society didn’t force people to think about what they did before they did it, the world would be in utter chaos.
Charles Bukowski
A Close Call While Shopping
No to the Constitution when a hindrance Yes to man as a struggler amid illusions, Each man fated to answer for himself: Which of the faiths and illusions of mankind Must I choose for my own sustaining light To bring me beyond the present wilderness? Lincoln? Was he a poet? And did he write verses? “I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom.” I shall do nothing through malice: what I deal with is too vast for malice.”
Death was in the air. So was birth.
null
Sandburg again makes use of symbols with death and birth to portray Licoln’s greatest accomplishments. He uses death to represent the end of something, the end of slavery in America (emancipation proclamation), and birth to symbolize the creation of something new; an era with freedom.
Carl Sandburg
The People Yes
Escape Shadows, shadows, Hug me round So that I shall not be found By sorrow: She pursues me Everywhere, I can't lose her Anywhere. Fold me in your black Abyss,
She will never look
In this,-- Shadows, shadows, Hug me round
This line presents a contradiction: if sorrow pursues the narrator everywhere and she can’t lose her anywhere, then why wouldn’t sorrow follow her into the Abyss? Why wouldn’t sorrow look there? Perhaps sorrow, representative of what white people have inflicted on African Americans, cannot enter into something as sacred to blacks as this black abyss, whatever it is (death or a safe space or a sea of black people). Perhaps sorrow WON’T look in a place that is so “black” for racist reasons.
Georgia Douglas Johnson
Escape
That have no news that day of Moscow. In the pot behind the Paper doors what's cooking? What's smelling, Leontyne? Lieder, lovely Lieder And a leaf of collard green, Lovely Lieder Leontyne. In the shadow of the negroes Nkrumah In the shadow of the negroes Nasser Nasser In the shadow of the negroes
Zik Azikiwe
Cuba Castro Guinea touré For need or propaganda Kenyatta
Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, usually called Nnamdi Azikiwe or Zik azikiwe was the first president of Nigeria, he was a nationalist. Co-founded the National Council of Nigeria, leading to the country’s independence. He became a well-respected “philosopher- king” of Nigeria. (1904-1996)
Langston Hughes
Cultural Exchange
null
I read a book about John Dos Passos and according to The book once radical-communist John ended up in the Hollywood Hills living off investments And reading the Wall Street Journal
This seems to happen all too often What hardly ever happens is A man going from being a young conservative to becoming an
John Dos Passos was an American novelist who started out as a radical leftist but ended up swinging far to the right, campaigning for Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater in the 1960s.
Charles Bukowski
Having the flu and with nothing else to do
I look at the world From awakening eyes in a black face— And this is what I see:
This fenced-off narrow space Assigned to me.
I look then at the silly walls Through dark eyes in a dark face— And this is what I know:
Literally this refers to the buildings found in Harlem, which are brick buildings that are usually narrow and fenced on the sides. Metaphorically Hughes is pointing out how in this time period African American’s were denied the same pleasures as Caucasians and “Assigned” to different theaters, bathrooms and etc. (usually of lower quality).
Langston Hughes
I Look At The World
Oh why is heaven built so far, Oh why is earth set so remote? I cannot reach the nearest star That hangs afloat. I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune Beyond my range. I never watch the scattered fire
The moon’s changes are so constant that they paradoxically become monotonous. Notice that Rossetti is “nouning” an adjective in striking fashion: the more predictable word choice here would be “monotony.”
Christina Rossetti
De Profundis
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say
Auden may be slyly ruminating on unrequited human love as well as our unrequited love for the natural world.
W. H. Auden
The More Loving One
Happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshipped me: surprise Made my heart swell, and still it grew While I debated what to do. That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened next the tress About her neck; her cheek once more
This seems the only time the narrator is uneasy. He opens her eyes ‘warily’, but in the line that follows his anxiety is immediately assuaged, when her ‘blue eyes’ — as he believes — ‘laughed’.
Robert Browning
Porphyria’s Lover
null
(A LEXICAL EXERCISE)
In his dream zealous To attain his home, But ensorcelling powers
“Lexical” meaning “of or relating to words or the vocabulary of a language as distinguished from its grammar and construction”; Auden, in addition to creating a spectacularly sounding phrase, lays out the premise for this obscure work. From creating his own words to using extremely complex and abstract phrasings, Auden stretches the possibilities of the English language (plus an appearance by the always-loved Latin).
W. H. Auden
A Bad Night
Sadie bore two babies Under her maiden name. Maud and Ma and Papa Nearly died of shame. Everyone but Sadie Nearly died of shame. When Sadie said her last so-long Her girls struck out from home. (Sadie had left as heritage Her fine-tooth comb.) Maud, who went to college, Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone In this old house.
null
The final line causes us to question whether or not Maud did the right thing by going to college, and what brings about happiness. It also implies that perhaps Sadie’s children won’t have to sacrifice happiness for education.
Gwendolyn Brooks
Sadie and Maud
"Love seeketh not itself to please Nor for itself hath any care But for another gives its ease And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay Trodden with the cattle's feet But a Pebble of the brook Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only Self to please To bind another to its delight Joys in another's loss of ease
In the folk tradition of answer songs , the proposition by the Clod in Verse 1 is replied to by the Pebble in Verse 3. Answer songs are generally from the opposite point of view. For example, from a woman to a man where the original was sung to the woman by the man. The Clod is described as “trodden with cattle’s feet”, giving an impression that it is malleable, and in reality easily manipulated by those with whom it has a relationship. On the contrary, the Pebble lays at the bottom of the brook, and being a hard stone, does not let others control it in a relationship, rejecting most manipulation, with its unchangeable shape. Note that ‘meet’ here is an archaic word meaning suitable or appropriate.
William Blake
The Clod and the Pebble
[Instrumental] [Outro] I wish there was a treaty we could sign It's over now, the water and the wine
We were broken then but now we're borderline
And I wish there was a treaty I wish there was a treaty between your love and mine
Characterized by serious affective and social impairment, fragmented identity and sometimes psychotic symptoms, borderline personality disorder is the closest definition of a “broken” person in the words of a psychiatrist. For me, this line means: “we are still broken, but at least we understand it better”.
Leonard Cohen
String Reprise/Treaty
Over the river, and through the wood, To grandfather's house we go; The horse knows the way To carry the sleigh
Through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood— Oh, how the wind does blow! It stings the toes
Winters in 19th-century American and European literature tend to be a lot chillier than they are now. That’s because the planet was still in the grip of the so-called Little Ice Age that lasted roughly from 1550 to 1850. A Thanksgiving this snowy would be unusual in New England these days…though who knows what climate change will bring.
Lydia Maria Child
A Boys Thanksgiving Day Over the river and through the wood
All the lazy dykes Cross-armed at the Palms Then legs astride their bikes
Indigo burns on their arms
One sweet day An emotional whirl You will be good to yourself
While ‘Indigo burns’ is an ambiguous term, it’s commonly agreed upon that in this context Morrissey is referring to home-made tattoos.
Morrissey
All the Lazy Dykes
Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd. Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth. They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair And made an exhibition of its coil, Let the air at her leathery beauty.
Pash of tallow, perishable treasure:
Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod, Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings. Diodorus Siculus confessed
“Pash” is an archaic word for “throw” or “cast down”. So this line suggests that the tallow used will preserve her as she is valuable … but at the same time she could easily be damaged or rot no that she has been exhumed. Note that “perishable treasure” is an oxymoron in a poem full of contradictions.
Seamus Heaney
Strange Fruit
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 say that for destruction ice Is also great
In the previous line, Frost claims that he favors those who favor fire. But if he had another choice, his second option would be ice. Frost continues with the theme of reconciliation of opposites. Opposites in this situation being fire vs. ice.
Robert Frost
Fire and Ice
(To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports of his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of the old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
The poem starts of describing a person simply referred to as ‘'he’‘ – we can safely assume this is the ’‘unknown citizen’‘. The Bureau of Statistics functions here as a parody of such “bureaucracies,” which are large, complicated organizations.
W. H. Auden
The Unknown Citizen
Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee As giving it a hope, that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee.
null
The speaker knows that Celia breathed on the wreath. This had some sort of supernatural effect on the flowers which smell of Celia and not of flowers. The implication is that her spirit still remains with him. Like it or not, he still seems to love her.
Ben Jonson
Song To Celia
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die,
Auden doesn’t curse much in his poetry. He actually discusses foul language in a short untitled poem . Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood He curses intentionally here to create a bitter and minimalistic tone. This is not a flowery sentiment and thus does not require flowery language. Note the uncertainty creeping in the speaker’s thoughts – he only “thinks” of himself as an admirer.
W. H. Auden
The More Loving One
Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we — Of many far wiser than we — And neither the angels in Heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: — For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: — And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Poe is obsessing over her beauty more and more. Especially after her death, he mentions how beautiful she is more and more.
Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee
Clean the spittoons, boy. Detroit, Chicago, Atlantic City, Palm Beach. Clean the spittoons. The steam in hotel kitchens, And the smoke in hotel lobbies, And the slime in hotel spittoons: Part of my life. Hey, boy!
A nickel, A dime, A dollar, Two dollars a day
Buy shoes for the baby. House rent to pay. Gin on Saturday,
This is possibly a reference to tips patrons give the boy, or it could indicate he is finding money as he cleans the spittoons. See this newspaper article on the poet for more.
Langston Hughes
Brass Spittoons
Sound the flute! Now it's mute! Birds delight, Day and night, Nightingale, In the dale, Lark in sky,— Merrily,
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.
Little boy, Full of joy; Little girl,
The long final line forms a resolution to the build-up in the previous lines. This creates a sense of anticipation and joy, appropriate to the meaning. The repetition of ‘merrily’, with its softness and short syllables, sets the pattern.
William Blake
Spring
It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich. I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene, An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew, A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew. The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna, Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack I may be a bit of a Jew. I have always been scared of you.
The narrator continues to distance herself from her German/Nazi-esque father by highlighting her own “impure heritage”
Sylvia Plath
Daddy
Your arms are water. And you are free With a ghastly freedom. You are the beautiful half Of a golden hurt You remember and covet his mouth, To touch, to whisper on. Oh when to declare Is certain Death! Oh when to apprize Is to mesmerize. To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.
null
Ash is caused by a raging fire, which symbolizes the love she felt for him. When something burns into ashes, it can’t be restored to it’s original form, though- just like their love. It went from something breathtaking to something as dead as ash. Now that this guy is no longer there to keep her fire burning, or to make her feel loved, she also feels as dead as ash.
Gwendolyn Brooks
To be in love
Our Mothers, lovely women pitiful; Our Sisters, gracious in their life and death; To us each unforgotten memory saith: "Learn as we learned in life's sufficient school, Work as we worked in patience of our rule, Walk as we walked, much less by sight than faith, Hope as we hoped, despite our slips and scathe, Fearful in joy and confident in dule." I know not if they see us or can see; But if they see us in our painful day, How looking back to earth from Paradise
Do tears not gather in those loving eyes?--
Ah, happy eyes! whose tears are wiped away Whether or not you bear to look on me.
This line is perhaps the nub of the message of this poem, the tears of loving sympathy shed by women in heaven for the problems and hardships of women on earth. Note that this is a rhetorical question for which no answer is given, but the implication is that it is affirmative. It ends with a pause, a caesura , to give the reader a moment to absorb the significance.
Christina Rossetti
Our Mothers lovely women pitiful
I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every man, In every Infant's cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper's cry Every blackning church appalls; And the hapless Soldier's sigh
A striking line, the most important in the poem perhaps, appearing exactly half-way through. The previously described trials of the oppressed population make Blake aware of the systems of control – religious, social, economic, political and monarchical – which keep the people in a state of sufferation . The compressed compound adjective ‘mind-forged’ is especially memorable, with ‘mind’ a noun modifier for ‘forged’. Note also the long vowels which make the line difficult to say — almost a tongue-twister — expressing the mental restrictions it describes. The use of “mind-forged” is important in understanding this poem, as Blake uses it to emphasise the point that these manacles, while a direct result of religious, social, economic, and political forms of control, are also perpetuated by our own limitations. In other words, we create our own internal mental prisons. The “mind-forged manacles” may also be a reference to Rousseau’s comment “Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains”. Rouseau was a near contemporary of Blake.
William Blake
London
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever you see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful--- The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
These lines continue to anthropomorphize the mirror, i.e. give it human qualities. The mirror is given a heart, and is able to form abstract thoughts and meditate. “Flickers” and “Faces and darkness separate us over and over” give us an image of faces coming to the mirror, looking at themselves, then turning off the lights and leaving the mirror alone in the darkness, over and over. The flickering of faces and darkness may also convey rapid passing of time; as the woman ages from a ‘young girl’ to an ‘old woman’.
Sylvia Plath
Mirror
Nentis Nan, he's my man, I go do im each chanz I gan. He sicks me down an creans my teed Wid mabel syrub, tick an' sweed, An ten he filks my cavakies Wid choclut cangy-- I tink he's The graygest nentis in the Ian. Le's hear free jeers for Nentis Nan. Pip-pip-ooray! Pip-pip-ooray! Pip-pip-ooray!
Le's go to Nentis Nan dooday!
null
Let’s go to Dentist Dan today! Better visit quick, before the ADA comes to review his license…
Shel Silverstein
Dentist Dan
And when they all were seated A Service, like a Drum Kept beating—beating—till I thought My Mind was going numb And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again Then Space—began to toll As all the Heavens were a Bell And Being, but an Ear And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here
And then a Plank in Reason, broke
And I dropped down, and down And hit a World, at every plunge And Finished knowing—then
Karen Ford of Harvard College states that “The ‘Plank in Reason’ that breaks in the final stanza is anticipated in the shift from interior to exterior space, as though the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room (or the sides, lid, and bottom of the coffin), all made of planks, suddenly disappear, plunging the speaker into limitless and terrifying space.” Dickinson here tries to express her feelings of complete loss, and the end of the road for her. All hope has been lost and she is near the end of her journey. Ford, Karen. “On 280 ("I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain”).“ On 280 ("I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain”). Harvard College, 1997. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
Emily Dickinson
I felt a Funeral in my Brain class page
At which point he once turned his eyes upon me, Hyperborean, beyond-the-north-wind blue, Two peepholes to the locked room I saw into Every time his name was mentioned, skimmed Milk and ice, swabbed porcelain, the white And chill of tiles, steel hooks, chrome surgery tools And blood dreeps in the sawdust where it thickened At the foot of each cold wall. And overhead The little, pendent, teat-hued infant parts Strung neatly from a line up near the ceiling— A toe, a foot and shin, an arm, a cock A bit like the rosebud in his buttonhole.
II
Poeta doctus Peter Levi says Sanctuaries of Asclepius (called asclepions) Were the equivalent of hospitals
Section 2 focuses on the speaker’s experience as he is older- the language and references used here are much more sophisticated and adult, and the speaker’s tone is much more authoritative. However, structurally it is very similar to Section 1. Both feature a mythologised figure who the speaker looks up to (Dr Kerlin becomes Peter Levi), a set of healing rituals (Dr Kerlin’s bag, pilgrimages to Lourdes & Epidaurus), and a moment of final epiphany & rebirth (eye contact with Dr Kerlin, coming out of the fainting spell). These parallels show that although the nature of wonder and belief changes as one ages, it is ever-present.
Seamus Heaney
Out of the Bag
Crimson is the slow smolder of the cigar end I hold,
Gray is the ash that stiffens and covers all silent the fire.
(A great man I know is dead and while he lies in his coffin a gone flame I sit here in cumbering shadows and smoke and watch my thoughts come and go.)
Lifeless, the smoked end of a cigar clings delicately, waiting to be flicked. The byproduct of burning, the somber ash symbolizes death
Carl Sandburg
Crimson
Too much to bear. You cannot look in his eyes Because your pulse must not say What must not be said. When he shuts a door- Is not there- Your arms are water. And you are free With a ghastly freedom. You are the beautiful half Of a golden hurt
You remember and covet his mouth,
To touch, to whisper on. Oh when to declare Is certain Death!
There is a slight contridiction in the choice of words. “Remember” has a positive connotation, whereas “covet” has a negative one. It’s almost saying “You remember all the times you spent together, and you jealously desire to have them once again.”
Gwendolyn Brooks
To be in love
To the family: ah but it's Kay, & Ted, & Chis & Anne Henry thinks of: who eased his fearful way From here, in here, to there. This wants thought I won't make it out Maybe the source of noble such may come Clearer to dazzled Henry. It may come I'd say it will come with pain In mystery. I'd rather leave it alone I do leave it alone And down with the listener Now he has become, abrupt, an industry
Professional-Friends-Of-Robert-Frost all over
Gap wide their mouths While the quirky medium of so many truths Is quiet. Let's be quiet. Let us listen:
As in, for instance: The Robert Frost Society
John Berryman
Dream Song 38
Hell is empty. O that has come to pass which the cut Alexandrian foresaw, and Hell is empty. Lightning fell silent where the Devil knelt and over the whole grave space hath settled awe in a full death of guilt. The tinchel closes. Terror, & plunging, swipes. I lay my ears back. I am about to die.
My cleft feet drum.
Fierce, the two-footers club. My green world pipes a finish—for us all, my love, not some. Crumpling, I—why,—
Daniel Defoe, in his Political History of the Devil , attributes this assumed feature of the evil one to the separation of goats and the sheep parable in Exodus 25 :31-46. (The sheep are the Christians, though they’ve of course got hooves, too). Defoe doesn’t fail to point out that some artists likely treat the image “with more Solemnity than I believe the Devil himself does.”
John Berryman
Dream Song 56
'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die."
She no longer believes in polytheism (worship of many gods or godesses). She now believes in one supreme God and Savior, Jesus Christ. White slave owners taught their slaves that there was a one and only God and his son Jesus Christ, who saved everyone from sin. They encouraged slaves to believe and have faith in God and religiously taught from the Bible which is ironic, seeing as how the slaves were not permitted to read lest they gain knowledge. Only from their masters is where they learned about God and to sing praises to him which to some were the saddest songs.
Phillis Wheatley
On Being Brought from Africa to America
The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, and did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; Which done, she rose, and from her form Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, And laid her soiled gloves by, untied Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied, She put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
This enhances the sense of anticipation. Porphyria’s busy-ness suggests her stress and nerves at this huge decision she has made to meet this man, the speaker.
Robert Browning
Porphyria’s Lover
Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true. And the line where the incoming swell from the sunset Pacific
First leans and staggers to break will tell all you need to know
About submarine geography, and your father's death rattle Provides all biographical data required for the Who's Who of the dead. I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least
This could potentially be saying something about the simplicity of Gods love. And also how fragile death truly is. And by father Robert could be talking about God, for he is the one who accepts people into heaven and the rattle could symbolize​ the bible which is the biographical (data or written work dealing with a particular persons life) of heaven.
Robert Penn Warren
A Way To Love God
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Let not young souls be smothered out before
They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed.
“Smothered out” refers to more than death. The author begins the poem with this main point: people are born with a kind of spiritual fire, and the world has a way of snuffing out that fire – either through death itself, or just through a gradual wearing down of spirit as people accept the mundane qualities of everyday life.
Vachel Lindsay
The Leaden Eyed
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I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane.
The repetition of the first line of the poem provides a closure to the whole poem. It also emphasizes the narrator’s relationship to the “night,” which as mentioned before could represent his loneliness and depression. The repetition also symbolizes that nothing has changed for the narrator; he still continues to be lonely and the walks at night still continue. His acquaintance with the “night” is a cyclical action. Even though he will continue walking at night, the night will still be an acquaintance to him since he feels alone and unconnected to anyone.
Robert Frost
Acquainted with the Night
Down on his hands and knees beside the leek rig, Touching, inspecting, separating one Stalk from the other, gently pulling up Everything not tapered, frail and leafless, Pleased to feel each little weed-root break, But rueful also . . . Then found myself listening to The amplified grave ticking of hall clocks Where the phone lay unattended in a calm Of mirror glass and sunstruck pendulums . . . And found myself then thinking: if it were nowadays, This is how Death would summon Everyman.
Next thing he spoke and I nearly said I loved him.
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The last line comes as a shock in its sadness. The poignancy is reinforced by the simplicity of the language, a monosyllabic string , apart from the word “nearly”, that needs no embellishment. The “mirror glass” and its significance is clear; Heaney’s relationship with his father was unexpressed and unfulfilled.
Seamus Heaney
A Call
Over the river, and through the wood, To grandfather's house we go; The horse knows the way
To carry the sleigh
Through the white and drifted snow. Over the river, and through the wood— Oh, how the wind does blow!
Sleighs used to be a common winter vehicle in the days before automobiles. Now they’re a pure nostalgia item, associated with Santa’s villages and touristy festivals like this one from Minnesota:
Lydia Maria Child
A Boys Thanksgiving Day Over the river and through the wood
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it,
Perfectly round objects –like this jar– do not exist in nature. Stevens is addressing humanity’s tendency to impose man-made entities onto nature, disturbing uncorrupted space with their domineering creations. Placing the jar “upon” (making it “above” or superior to) a hill signifies man’s attempted ascendancy over the natural world.
Wallace Stevens
Anecdote of the Jar
The stars, sun, moon, all shrink away, A desert vast without a bound, And nothing left to eat or drink, And a dark desert all around. The honey of her infant lips, The bread and wine of her sweet smile, The wild game of her roving eye, Does him to infancy beguile; For as he eats and drinks he grows Younger and younger every day; And on the desert wild they both Wander in terror and dismay.
Like the wild stag she flees away,
Her fear plants many a thicket wild; While he pursues her night and day, By various arts of love beguil'd;
The fleeing stag or doe is a traditional image of the skittish lover, whom the famished hunter pursues. Compare Sir Thomas Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt” (16th century): Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow… And graven with diamonds in letters plain There is written, her fair neck round about: Noli me tangere , for Caesar’s I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
William Blake
The Mental Traveller
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The Grass so little has to do A Sphere of simple Green
With only Butterflies to brood And Bees to entertain And stir all day to pretty Tunes
Literal reading: Dickinson immediately sets up her impression of grass–it’s pretty and simple and doesn’t do anything other than provide an innocent backdrop for innocent creatures. Figurative reading: Keeping in mind the introduction of a Duchess later, we can think of the grass as a metaphor for a similar type of woman–the society lady who does nothing but listen to chamber music, entertain a ‘hive’ of admirers (she’s the Queen Bee, right?), and gossip with friends (butterflies).
Emily Dickinson
The Grass
Sometimes the notes are ferocious, Skirmishes against the author Raging along the borders of every page In tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, They seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive - "Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" - That kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading, My thumb as a bookmark, Trying to imagine what the person must look like
Who wrote "Don't be a ninny" Alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. Students are more modest
This is the first of two specific marginalia that the speaker of the poem recalls in the poem, the later one encompassing the final two climactic stanzas. These lines also establish the speaker as a thoughtful reader, pausing to reflect not only on the books he is reading, but their marginalia as well
Billy Collins
Marginalia
I too beneath your moon, almighty Sex,
Go forth at nightfall crying like a cat,
Leaving the lofty tower I laboured at For birds to foul and boys and girls to vex With tittering chalk; and you, and the long necks
If you’ve ever heard feral cats mating, you know what she’s talking about. FUN CAT FACT: Apparently female cats can give birth to five different kittens, each with five different fathers, in one litter.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I Too Beneath Your Moon Almighty Sex
'They gone far Toolsie!
In the darkness of dancehall
Sita shaking she hip and Negro shaking back, Loud noise, lipstick and loose brassieres, How these children got no shame, and hard-ears.
Dancehall is a sub genre of reggae music that contains more profanity, and lustful lyrics. Topics usually discussed in Dancehall music are love, sex, violence or the daily struggles living in the ghettos of Jamaica. Native Jamaicans also call lavish parties in which plenty of Dancehall music is played a “Dancehall party”. Dancehall is mostly popular amongst the youths of Jamaica and is highly frowned upon by the older generation who feels it is secular and slowly corrupting the minds of the youths turning them “ungodly.” This idea/ mentality can be seen in this line in which the speaker refers to it as “the darkness of Dancehall.” This reveals to us that the speaker is an older individual speaking about the youth. Watch from 40:00 to 43:00 for an example of a jamaican “Dancehall Party”
David Dabydeen
Days End
Beard The young housewife next door shakes a rug Out of her window and sees me: "hello, Hank!" God damn! it's almost like being shot in the ass With a .22 "hello," I say Gathering up my Visa card bill, my Pennysaver coupons A Dept. of Water and Power past-due notice A letter from the mortgage people Plus a demand from the Weed Abatement Department Giving me 30 days to clean up my act
I mince back again over the small sharp rocks
Thinking, maybe I'd better write something tonight They all seem To be
He is walking barefoot outside.
Charles Bukowski
Back to the machine gun
The hills step off into whiteness. People or stars Regard me sadly, I disappoint them. The train leaves a line of breath. O slow Horse the color of rust, Hooves, dolorous bells-- All morning the
Morning has been blackening,
A flower left out. My bones hold a stillness, the far Fields melt my heart.
What should only get brighter is becoming dark instead. Morning could also be a pun, its homophone “mourning” appropriately means grieving.
Sylvia Plath
Sheep in Fog
In his head The steady breaking and wombing Wild seabirds And fisherman pulling out to sea The sun surfacing defiantly From the east Of his small emerald island He always comes back groggily groggily Comes back to sands Of a grey metallic soar To surge of wheels To dull North Circular roar
Muffling muffling
His crumpled pillow waves Island man heaves himself Another London day
‘Muffling’ is an onomatopoeic word that imitates the dampened sounds he might hear when he buries his head in his pillow. The repetition echoes the duplication of ‘groggily’ in stanza three.
Grace Nichols
Island Man
null
Sundays too my father got up early And put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
Then with cracked hands that ached From labor in the weekday weather made Banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
On Sundays the speaker’s father would wake up earlier than everyone else and get ready to start his day. He wants to make sure that his family awakes to a warm house. The father is a very quiet man who shows his love through actions rather than verbally. We can assume that he cares about his family’s well-being as well as the value of hard work. The subtle “too” in the opening line implies that his father also wakes early on all other days of the week. “Blueblack cold” blurs the feel of the cold with the vision of darkness, creating a succinct cross-sensory effect, known as synaesthesia . “Blueblack” also suggests bruising, but of an emotional nature. The cold is emphasised early and often, and reflects the uncaring response of his family, symbolizing solitude and emotional distance.
Robert Hayden
Those Winter Sundays
Plane moves. I don't like the feel of it. In a car I'd suspect low tyre pressure. A sudden swiftness, earth slithers Off at an angle. The experienced solidly
This is rather a short hop for me
Read Guardians, discuss secretaries, Business lunches. I crane for the last of dear I'm doing it just to say I've done it
The second speaker is relaxed, flippant, a little arrogant, in contrast to the tension clearly felt by the first speaker.
U. A. Fanthorpe
First Flight
Our influence on them is the reflection they see When they look into their minstrel mirror and talk about "Their" culture Their existence is that of a schizophrenic vulture Yea there's no repentance They are bound to live an infinite consecutive executive life sentence So what are you bound to live nigga So while you're out there serving the time I'll be in sync with the sun while you run from the moon Life of the womb reflected by guns Worshiper of moons, I am the the sun And WE are public enemy's number 1
1-1-1 ..... 1-1-1
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He says “ We are public enemy number 1” in the previous followed by 6 ones after which adds up to seven 7 means God in Supreme Mathematics . This refers to the line earlier where he says: Never question who I am God knows And I know god personally In fact he let’s me call him me This reinforce the idea that we are all our own gods, which is a sentiment shared by Five-Percent Nation In the published version of the poem, these lines are followed by that’s seven. And I’ll be out on the block, hustling culture, slinging amethyst rocks.
Saul Williams
Amethyst Rocks
Who'll pay reparations on my soul? Many suggestions And documents written Many directions For the end that was given They gave us Pieces of silver and pieces of gold Tell me, Who'll pay reparations on my soul?
Many fine speeches (oh yeah) From the White House desk (uh huh)
Written on the cue cards That were never really there Yes, but the heat and the summer were there
Presidents often use the Oval Office (besides the U.S. Capital building in front of a joint session of Congress) as the venue to give the most important speeches. These speeches are the most refined since they are intended to be heard not only by all U.S. citizens but also people around the world. JFK giving a speech about the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962: LBJ announcing that he would not run for re-election on 3/31/1968:
Gil Scott-Heron
Wholl Pay Reparations on My Soul?
And sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east began to say. Look on the rising sun: there God does live And gives his light, and gives his heat away. And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive Comfort in morning joy in the noonday. And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love, And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice. Thus did my mother say and kissed me,
Earlier in the poem, the mother says to the child that his blackness is like a cloud. Here she tells him that if he learns to bear hardship the cloud will lift and God will love him. Later the boy says to a white boy that both their clouds will be lifted and God will love them equally when they are free from colour. As a Songs of Innocence, this poem has a more uplifting feel to it.
William Blake
The Little Black Boy Songs of Innocence
inert gaze of Coleridge, back from Malta – his eyes lost in flesh, lips baked and black. Your tiger kitten, Oranges, cartwheeled for joy in a ball of snarls. You said: "We poets in our youth begin in sadness; thereof in the end come despondency and madness; Stalin has had two cerebral hemorrhages!" The Charles River was turning silver. In the ebb- light of morning, we stuck the duck
-'s web-
foot, like a candle, in a quart of gin we'd killed.
An especially Lowelly line. Doubtful that anyone had begun a line with a possessive apostrophe before him.
Robert Lowell
To Delmore Schwartz
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
The word ‘unconquerable’ is key to the poem. After the negativity that went before, the poet introduces the idea of strength and invincibility; he is establishing the theme that he will carry through the poem.
William Ernest Henley
Invictus
THE artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
A person who loves art appreciates true art – can recognize the truly beautiful for what it is.
Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray Preface
This lunar beauty Has no history, Is complete and early; If beauty later Bear any feature It had a lover And is another. This like a dream Keeps other time, And daytime is The loss of this;
For time is inches
And the heart's changes Where ghost has haunted, Lost and wanted.
Time is about movement, space, progress, change. “This lunar beauty” is about something else.
W. H. Auden
This Lunar Beauty
Like those Nicean barks of yore That gently, o'er a perfum'd sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand! The agate lamp within thy hand
Ah! Psyche from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
A beautiful mythological princess who ended up marrying the god of love himself, Eros. For the sake of Psyche’s safety, Eros told Psyche that she could never look at him when they made love. Unfortunately, eventually Psyche became curious and shined an agate lamp on Eros. This ties back to the agate lamp from the previous line .
Edgar Allan Poe
To Helen
happiness is stupid there isn't enough shit on my face come back and shit on my face again I'm tired of figurative language i don't understand figures of speech a piece of shit lettuce i just typed something stupid i want me to go away i can't stop being stupid grammar is stupid
I'm going to kill grammar and symbolism
thinking is stupid i'll kill thinking if i had a gun
Lin approaches poetry with a Joycean stream of consciousness style that is ultimately abandoned, except when it is used as a device in his prose to accentuates certain of feelings emptiness and the human condition.
Tao Lin
Im tired
When I am out of funds and sorts And life is all in snarls, I quit New York and travel east To Boston on the Charles. In Boston, life is smoother far, It's easier and freer, Where every boy's a Harvard man And every man's a skier. There's something in the Boston scene So innocent, so tranquil, It takes and holds my interest The same as any bank will.
For Boston's not a capital, And Boston's not a place; Rather I feel that Boston is The perfect state of grace.
After a week of Boston I rise and take the train And I am always very glad
Alluded to in President Obama’s remarks at an interfaith service for the victims of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings: And across this city, hundreds of thousands of Bostonians lined the streets to hand the runners cups of water, to cheer them on. It was a beautiful day to be in Boston, a day that explains why a poet once wrote that this town is not just a capital, not just a place. Boston, he said, is the perfect state of grace…
E. B. White
Boston Is Like No Other Place in the World Only More So
I KNOW what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals — I know what the caged bird feels! I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
The final syllable which would qualify this line for the established rhythm of mid-stanza lines in this poem is missing, which highlights the disruptive role of the bars, as well as the incomplete nature of life within them.
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Sympathy
But all care huddles to hearths and kettles. The sun lobs one wet snowball feebly Grim and blue The dusk of the coombe And the swamp woodland Sinks with the wren. See old lips go purple and old brows go paler. The stiff crow drops in the midnight silence. Sneezes grow coughs and coughs grow painful. The vixen yells in the midnight garden. You wake with the shakes and watch your breathing Smoke in the moonlight – silent, silent.
Your anklebone And your anklebone Lie big in the red.
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An enigmatic final ‘wheel’, which further compels the reader to consider their own physicality as they observe their anklebones. It’s possible that Hughes means the reader to be looking down at themselves, or possibly lying in bed. The ‘red’ is nature itself, and alludes to a famous Tennyson line.
Ted Hughes
Christmas Card
Gladly they rise at his call; Gladly they take his command; Gladly descend to the plain. Alas! How few of them all— Those willing servants—shall stand In their Master's presence again! Some in the tumult are lost: Baffled, bewilder'd, they stray. Some as prisoners draw breath. Others—the bravest—are cross'd, On the height of their bold-follow'd way, By the swift-rushing missile of Death.
Hardly, hardly shall one Come, with countenance bright, O'er the cloud-wrapt, perilous plain: His Master's errand well done, Safe through the smoke of the fight, Back to his Master again.
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The question of who the “Men of Genius” truly are is never explicitly resolved. The word “man” cannot refer to non-human beings, so God’s “own” presumably fall outside of this category–in either case, there is little genial or glorious about their self-destructing intervention. Yet the people themselves are even further away from the ideal, and so the title may appear to be intended ironically–arguably cynically, misanthropically. Another interpretation can be formed by taking Thackeray’s addition to the same issue of this magazine into account: “Vanitas Vanitatum” (since he was editor of The Cornhill Magazine , he would have been the one to select Arnold’s poem). When juxtaposed, both works seem to be dealing with the same issue: men pursuing futile, even harmful, delusions instead of divine grace and virtue. From this perspective, the “of” in “Men of Genius” may not be pointing towards the possessed, but rather to the possessor. In other words: the “Men” do not embody “Genius,” but “Genius” or God–the opposite of vanity as implied in Thackeray’s poem–gave rise to them instead. Arnold’s piece then points to mankind’s latent potential, denied by their pursuit of “Vanitas Vanitatum” and the neglect of spirituality it brings about.
Matthew Arnold
Men of Genius
Within this restless, hurried, modern world We took our hearts' full pleasure - You and I, And now the white sails of our ship are furled, And spent the lading of our argosy. Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan, For very weeping is my gladness fled, Sorrow has paled my young mouth's vermilion, And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.
But all this crowded life has been to thee No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell Of viols, or the music of the sea That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
null
The hardships they had between them was nothing to the woman-it was all like a shell to her, she can just put it down and leave, whereas Wilde is left in ruin. Or perhaps Wilde himself was viewed as nothing but a temporary sweet sound emitting from a “shell” to the woman; when the woman got tired of it/annoyed, she can just move on, whereas Wilde feels abandoned and taken advantage of.
Oscar Wilde
My Voice
Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin I don't like your fashion business, mister And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin I don't like what happened to my sister First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin I'd really like to live beside you, baby I love your body and your spirit and your clothes But you see that line there moving through the station? I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those
And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin I practiced every night, now I'm ready First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
In his prologues to the song , Cohen used to take the opportunity and thank the audience for the gifts he received before the show – letters, demo tapes, flowers, etc.
Leonard Cohen
First We Take Manhattan
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, I'll tell thee Little Lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name For he calls himself a Lamb
He is meek, and he is mild; He became a little child
I a child, and thou a lamb We are called by his name Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Jesus was God incarnate. He was laid in a manger in a stable and represented perfection on earth in his meekness and mildness. The quality of perfection is often attributed to lambs, who were sacrificed to God.
William Blake
The Lamb
Haul'd from beneath the violated shade, And on the sacred pile the royal victim laid. His right hand held his bloody falchion bare, His left he twisted in his hoary hair; Then, with a speeding thrust, his heart he found: The lukewarm blood came rushing thro' the wound, And sanguine streams distain'd the sacred ground. Thus Priam fell, and shar'd one common fate With Troy in ashes, and his ruin'd state. He, who the scepter of all Asia sway'd, Whom monarchs like domestic slaves obey'd. On the bleak shore now lies th' abandon'd king,
A headless carcass, and a nameless thing.
Works Cited Berardo, Janet A. Familial Transcendence as Exemplified by Pietas in the Aeneid. Diss. Walden University, 2002. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2003. ProQuest. Web. 9 Sept. 2014. Frost, William. "Dryden's Vergil.” Comparative Literature 36.3 (1984): 193-208. JSTOR. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
The text alludes to the death of Pompey , one of the foremost military leaders and political players of the late Republic. During the civil war, he was murdered in Egypt by those who had posed as his allies. His head was famously presented to Julius Caesar, while his decapitated corpse was left on the Egyptian shore. These events are described here by Plutarch. As Tristan J. Power observes, the deaths of both men heralded the end of separate periods in the life-history of the Roman people ( 796 ). Whereas Priam’s death marked the fall of Troy and the expulsion of the proto-Romans from their ancestral homeland, Pompey’s death embodied the fall of the Republic and the violence that came with the emerging Empire. A modern dramatization of Pompey’s death, from the HBO series Rome :
John Dryden
Vergils Aeneid Book II: The Death of Priam
In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old, this knight so bold, And o'er his heart a shadow Fell, as he found no spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength failed him at length, He met a pilgrim Shadow. "Shadow," said he, "Where can it be, This land called Eldorado?" "Over the Mountains of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride," the Shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado."
Psalm 23, Verse 4 states: Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil." This line suggests that the only way to find El Dorado is to pass through the valley of the shadow of death, or in other words–die.
Edgar Allan Poe
Eldorado
When that immortal hospital made one more moove to soothe The curless counted body, And ruin his causes Over the barbed and shooting sea assumed an army And swept into our wounds and houses, I climb to greet the war in which I have no heart but only That one dark I owe my light, Call for confessor and wiser mirror but there is none To glow after the god stoning night And I am struck as lonely as a holy marker by the sun No Praise that the spring time is all
Gabriel and radiant shrubbery as the morning grows joyful Out of the woebegone pyre
And the multitude's sultry tear turns cool on the weeping wall, My arising prodgidal Sun the father his quiver full of the infants of pure fire,
Gabriel: “an angel of the Lord” ( Luke 1:11 ) Pyre: a heap of combustible material, especially one for burning a corpse as part of a funeral ceremony. Heaven is opening up and letting the speaker’s friend into the after life. Also touching on the deeper cycles of renewal that come with the changing of the seasons.
Dylan Thomas
Holy Spring
Nentis Nan, he's my man, I go do im each chanz I gan. He sicks me down an creans my teed Wid mabel syrub, tick an' sweed, An ten he filks my cavakies Wid choclut cangy-- I tink he's The graygest nentis in the Ian.
Le's hear free jeers for Nentis Nan. Pip-pip-ooray! Pip-pip-ooray! Pip-pip-ooray!
Pip-pip-ooray! Pip-pip-ooray! Le's go to Nentis Nan dooday!
Let’s hear three cheers for Dentist Dan! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray!
Shel Silverstein
Dentist Dan
Compared with me, a tree is immortal And a flower-head not tall, but more startling, And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring. Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars, The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors. I walk among them, but none of them are noticing. Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping I must most perfectly resemble them -- Thoughts gone dim. It is more natural to me, lying down. Then the sky and I are in open conversation, And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.
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In death, the speaker will finally be become a part of the awe-inspiring natural world.
Sylvia Plath
I Am Vertical
A bunch of lonesome and very quarrelsome heroes Were smoking out along the open road; The night was very dark and thick between them
Each man beneath his ordinary load
"I'd like to tell my story," Said one of them so young and bold "I'd like to tell my story
If one thinks that the setting is Vietnam and the characters are disorientated American soliders the ‘'ordinary load’‘ is military luggage.
Leonard Cohen
A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes
Out of SPACE — out of TIME. Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, With forms that no man can discover For the tears that drip all over; Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire, Surging, unto skies of fire; Lakes that endlessly outspread Their lone waters — lone and dead, — Their still waters — still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread Their lone waters, lone and dead, — Their sad waters, sad and chilly
Lolling is the action of hanging or drooping in a limp fashion. In this dark dream-land the flowers lack signs of life and do not remain upright Lilies have been associated with various representations. They are commonly associated with death and dying but have also been associated with hope, purity and the Virgin Mary. Dreaming about lilies has been said to represent the loss or death of a loved one, a common theme throughout much of Poe’s literature
Edgar Allan Poe
Dream-Land
The great Overdog That heavenly beast With a star in one eye Gives a leap in the east. He dances upright All the way to the west And never once drops On his forefeet to rest.
I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark With the great Overdog That romps through the dark.
In contrast with the word “Overdog,” the word “underdog” is not capitalized. This shows the gap between the two beings. The speaker feels inferior because he is a mere human, limited to the earth, and he does not have anything to celebrate like the dancing Overdog.
Robert Frost
Canis Major
492 Civilization — spurns — the Leopard! Was the Leopard — bold? Deserts — never rebuked her Satin Ethiop — her Gold Tawny — her Customs She was Conscious Spotted — her Dun Gown
This was the Leopard's nature — Signor Need — a keeper — frown?
Pity — the Pard — that left her Asia Memories — of Palm Cannot be stifled — with Narcotic
This was the Leopard’s past identity, Mister. Is there any need for a human owner/zookeeper to frown on it? If we take the Leopard as representative of the poet, these lines are a way of saying: “This is who I was–why should anyone act superior and judge?” Notice that this would-be moralistic judge is explicitly conceived as male, and that the speaker addresses him with elaborate mock deference: “Signor.”
Emily Dickinson
Civilization — spurns — the Leopard
A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's Row who were circling madly about the heap and pelting at him
His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body was writhing in the delivery of great, crimson oaths
"Run, Jimmie, run! Dey'll get yehs," screamed a retreating Rum Alley child "Naw," responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, "dese micks can't make me run." Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil's Row throats. Tattered gamins on the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. On their small, convulsed faces there shone the grins of true assassins. As they charged, they threw stones and cursed in shrill chorus
Here, Crane contrasts the youth and innocence of the urchin from Rum Alley with strong, hateful emotions like “livid” and “fury.” Crane also continues to contrast the relative smallness of the character with grand language often associated with war hero epics, as he does in the first line of the novella . Normally, “great crimson oaths” would conjure up an image of a knight swearing loyalty to his king, which makes the image of a little urchin defending his tenement nearly laughable. It also illustrates that though society has somewhat disregarded the tenements, the people in the tenements have adopted them and take pride them.
Stephen Crane
The Honor of Rum Alley I
Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child.
And he laughing said to me. Pipe a song about a Lamb; So I piped with merry chear,
This reinforces the fantastical context. The child is an allegory for the ideal of childhood denied most poor children in England.
William Blake
Introduction to the Songs of Innocence
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. There is a fair draft amongst the Boscombe manuscripts.] I. The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.
II.
Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss
As with the other stanzas , the rhyme scheme is ABABCCC. However, stanza II takes on a more dramatic tone of complaining, especially indicated by the exclamation points–though there is eventual acceptance in the last three lines. Finally, stanza III utilizes the poetic technique of anaphora to emphasize the consistency in inconsistency of life, also giving the stanza a dream-like state–which we figure out in the end, is a “dream”.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mutability II The flower that smiles today...
A hundred, a thousand to one; even so; Not a hope in the world remained: The swarming, howling wretches below
Gained and gained and gained.
Skene looked at his pale young wife:-- "Is the time come?"--"The time is come!"-- Young, strong, and so full of life:
The line is one syllable short of a tetrameter, to add to the choppy, urgent pace. This is the first of many repetitions in the poem. Here, the desperation is emphasised by the ‘and’s, forming a syndetic list.
Christina Rossetti
In The Round Tower At Jhansi June 8 1857
Should waste them all The crows above the forest call; To-morrow they may form and go O hushed October morning mild Begin the hours of this day slow Make the day seem to us less brief Hearts not averse to being beguiled Beguile us in the way you know; Release one leaf at break of day; At noon release another leaf; One from our trees, one far away; Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst
Slow, slow! For the grapes' sake, if they were all Whose leaves already are burnt with frost
This is a reference to the fantasy which Frost is creating within this poem. He wants mist to turn the land purple as Amethyst and hold time and the sun at bay.
Robert Frost
October
I like to see it lap the Miles And lick the valleys up And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains
And, supercilious, peer In shanties by the sides of roads; And then a quarry pare
This enjambs with the preceeding stanza to suggest continuous movement. The “pile” of mountains is an odd collective noun.
Emily Dickinson
I like to see it lap the Miles 43
And we was holdin' on I come from a broken home She had more than the five senses She knew more than books could teach And raised everyone she touched just a little bit higher And all around her there was a natural sense As though she sensed what the stars say, what the birds say What the wind and and the clouds say A sense of soul and self, that African sense And she raised me like she raised four of her own And I was hurt and scared and shocked when Lily Scott left Suddenly one night
And they sent a limousine from heaven to take her to God
If there is one So I knew she had gone And I came from a broken home
Here Scott-Heron shows his deep reverence for his grandmother. She may be the leader of a brken home , but in the eyes of God she is royalty. Even as a crack addict, Gil revealed the beauty in his soul here.
Gil Scott-Heron
On Coming From a Broken Home Pt. 1
Sometimes the notes are ferocious, Skirmishes against the author Raging along the borders of every page In tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, They seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Here the removed interaction between the author and the reader/annotator is imagined metaphorically as a physical, somewhat brutal, one, the speaker reading such critiques as a physical threats.
Billy Collins
Marginalia
null
To Ianthe
Not in those climes where I have late been straying, Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd; Not in those visions to the heart displaying
“Ianthe” was a term of endearment Byron used for Lady Charlotte Harley (1801–1880), the second daughter of 5th Earl of Oxford and Lady Oxford . She was about 11 years old when Childe Harold was first published. (Portrait of Charlotte Harley as Ianthe by Richard Westall)
Lord Byron
Childe Harolds Pilgrimage To Ianthe
She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow,, But tell of days in goodness spent,
This continues to express romantic tenets of writing by displaying beauty in a “mystical, spiritual, transcendent and strange” way. It continues to focus on the physical aspects of the woman Byron writes about. Note the rhythmic and balanced nature of the writing. In the first stanza he refers to ‘dark and bright’; in the second ‘one shade more, one ray less’; in the third he refers to ‘on that cheek and o'er that brow’. The latter two are syntactic parallels . These create a lyrical, song-like movement, suitable for setting to music.
Lord Byron
She Walks in Beauty
Once a dream did weave a shade O'er my angel-guarded bed, That an emmet lost its way Where on grass methought I lay. Troubled, wildered, and forlorn, Dark, benighted, travel-worn, Over many a tangle spray, All heart-broke, I heard her say: 'Oh my children! do they cry, Do they hear their father sigh? Now they look abroad to see, Now return and weep for me.'
Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near, Who replied, 'What wailing wight Calls the watchman of the night?
The speaker drops a tear — this is an idealised caring, empathetic world.
William Blake
A Dream
For three days we waited, a bowl of dull quartz for sky.
At night the valley dreamed of snow, lost Christmas angels with dark-white wings flailing the hills.
I dreamed a poem, perfect as the first five-pointed flake, that melted at dawn:
‘Dream’ is an important word in this poem, and, oddly enough, we first hear about the landscape dreaming. This changes the ‘we’ of the first line– it’s clear that the valley has an imagination, and memories, too.
Frances Horovitz
New Year Snow
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done. Call it a day, I wish they might have said To please the boy by giving him the half hour
The operation of the chain-saw clearly involves judgment, It has to be handled differently depending on the nature of the job, reinforcing the idea that a boy should not be operating it.
Robert Frost
Out Out—
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.
The bird’s cry happens at daylight or before – the moment just between night and day, when the old day is about to die and the new day about to be born. It is the cycle of regeneration from night into day, and from winter into spring.
Wallace Stevens
Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself