Thunder Road -- Bruce Springsteen

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney:

(Poem #1853) Thunder Road The screen door slams Mary's dress waves Like a vision she dances across the porch As the radio plays Roy Orbison singing for the lonely Hey, that's me, and I want you only Don't turn me home again Cause I just can't face myself alone again Don't run back inside, darling, You know just what I'm here for So you're scared and you're thinking That maybe we ain't that young anymore Show a little faith, there's magic in the night You're not a beauty, but hey, you're all right Oh, and that's all right with me. You can hide 'neath the covers And study your pain Make crosses from your lovers, Throw roses in the rain Waste your summer praying in vain For a savior to rise from these streets Well I'm no hero, that's understood All the redemption I can offer, girl, Is beneath this dirty hood With a chance to make it good somehow Baby, what else can we do now Except roll down the window And let the wind blow back your hair The night's busting open These two lanes will take us anywhere We've got one last chance to make it real To trade in these wings on some wheels Climb in back Heaven's waiting on down the tracks Oh, come take my hand We're riding out tonight to case the promised land Oh, Thunder Road, oh, Thunder Road Lying out there like a killer in the sun I know it's late, but we can make it if we run Oh, Thunder Road, Sit tight, take hold, Thunder Road. Well I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk And my car's out back if you're ready to take that long walk From the front porch to my front seat The door's open but the ride it ain't free And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken But tonight we'll be free All the promises will be broken There were ghosts in the eyes Of all the boys you sent away They haunt this dusty beach road In the skeleton frames of burnt-out Chevrolets They scream your name at night in the street Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet And in the lonely cool before dawn You can hear their engines roaring on But when you get to the porch they're gone On the wind, so Mary climb in, It's a town full of losers And I'm pulling out of here to win. -- Bruce Springsteen

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  some, but by no means all, song
lyrics work when you look at them independently as poems.  This is one of
the ones that does, in a very big way.

True, Springsteen's "story songs" are often too wordy, but he has a real
talent for indelible images.  And this song is fairly overflowing with them.
In my opinion, the ragged length of the lines (some of them actually have
too many syllables to fit the music!) and the irregular rhythm and rhyme
actually add something in this case -- a certain restless drive, that
underpins what we think of the main character.  (Listening to this song, you
keep feeling like it's going to settle into a regular ballad structure, with
abab rhymes and so on, but it never quite does.  For example, the "Thunder
Road" part in the middle looks like it's going to be a chorus, but ... nope,
it never comes back.  The whole thing almost feels improvised, a sort of
rush of disconnected thoughts.)

On the surface, it's just a testosterone-laden teenaged boy, trying to go on
a ride with, and maybe sleep with, a girl.  But Springsteen's approach to
the main character is interestingly divided -- simultaneously identifying
with this kid, but also keeping some objective distance.  (Look at that
virtuosic last verse for evidence:  what kid, trying to impress a girl,
would be thinking all those things at once?  It all of a sudden turns so
bitter and cynical -- "They haunt this dusty beach road / In the skeleton
frames of burnt-out Chevrolets" -- it's clear we're looking at the kid not
only through his own eyes, but through the author's as well.)

But my god, the images.  The first four lines are incredible.  And the third
verse.  And the last one.  It's one of those songs that you learn the words
to, because the words themselves are so delicious.

Lastly, you've got to say that the song is a little one-sided.  I'd love to
hear Mary's side of things.  Maybe it'd start something like this:

 A car horn honks
 I look to see who's there
 It's that Bruce again in his '63 Chevy
 And his unkempt hair
 "Dom-do-de-wah" sings Roy,
 "Only the lonely," and this boy.
 What can I do to make him
 Leave me alone and go away again?

Mark

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Episode of Hands -- Hart Crane

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney:

(Poem #1837) Episode of Hands The unexpected interest made him flush. Suddenly he seemed to forget the pain,-- Consented,--and held out One finger from the others. The gash was bleeding, and a shaft of sun That glittered in and out among the wheels, Fell lightly, warmly, down into the wound. And as the fingers of the factory owner's son, That knew a grip for books and tennis As well as one for iron and leather,-- As his taut, spare fingers wound the gauze Around the thick bed of the wound, His own hands seemed to him Like wings of butterflies Flickering in the sunlight over summer fields. The knots and notches,--many in the wide Deep hand that lay in his,--seemed beautiful. They were like the marks of wild ponies' play,-- Bunches of new green breaking a hard turf. And factory sounds and factory thoughts Were banished from him by that larger, quieter hand That lay in his with the sun upon it. and as the bandage knot was tightened The two men smiled into each other's eyes. -- Hart Crane

Where do you start with this beautiful poem?

Two men, described only through their hands, meet and briefly connect.  By
the way the hands are described, you know they're from vastly different
worlds, but both pairs of hands are beautiful (differently).  As the
front-office boy bandages the worker's wounded hand, a link of common
humanity is formed -- all wordlessly.  Each of them forgets who he is and
where he is, and simply becomes a fellow human being.  The bandage is, in
many ways, what knots them together.  That, and the smile, of course.

It has a certain feel of parable about it, starting with that epigrammatic
and unforgettable title, "Episode of Hands."

Of course, you're seeing the whole thing from the white-collar guy's point
of view -- Crane really did work in the front office of his father's factory
for a time -- so there are certainly questions you can ask: is it
politically too naive? is it, instead, elitist?  Also, I'd be remiss in not
pointing out that this poem is Exhibit A if you want to talk about Crane as
a gay poet, since here (for once) that particular subtext doesn't require
ridiculous leaps of logic to read in.  But you don't need to talk about any
of those things -- save that for the classroom.  As a reader, this stream of
quietly beautiful, creative images is enough.  Hands as butterflies.  Hands
as open fields, complete with horses running in them.  Hands as a microcosm
of what makes us human.

Notice also how the light -- striking the wound, as if washing it, filtering
in through the wheels (gears, etc., in the factory) -- is curative, and
seems itself to banish the sounds of the factory, to suggest or even create
the outdoor images that Crane uses.  Also, with the light comes a complete
absence of sound.  The bond between the two is almost necessarily wordless
-- a bandage, a shaft of light, an exchange of smiles.  The quiet of the
poem is palpable -- it's part of what makes it great.

I love Hart Crane like crazy, and this poem is one of the reasons why.

Mark.

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In Memoriam A. H. H., Section 5 -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney :

(Poem #1809) In Memoriam A. H. H., Section 5 I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold; But that large grief which these enfold Is given outline and no more. -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

So _In Memoriam_ is vast, and kind of out of style.  But that doesn't mean
that it doesn't have some great stuff in it.

A. H. H. stands for Arthur Henry Hallam.  Hallam was a close friend of
Tennyson's who was also engaged to Tennyson's sister.  He died before the
wedding; he was 22.  Naturally enough, this caused Tennyson to be catatonic
with grief.  As a way of working through it, Tennyson wrote _In Memoriam,_
which consists of 133 sections; each section is in turn composed of
quatrains of iambic tetrameter rhymed abba.  Since Tennyson invented that
stanza form for this poem, and since you've read several hundred of them by
the time you're done reading the poem, that form is called the "In Memoriam
stanza".

The poem as a whole, as you might expect, is about coming to terms with
grief.  Tennyson assays his grief, expiates it, and finds a way to move on.
That's the arc, anyway.  In the midst of that, you get an idea of who Hallam
was and what he meant to Tennyson.  There are also digressions on a few
other topics.  The In Memoriam stanza is a perfect microcosm of the arc of
the poem as a whole:  abba:  conflict, then resolution.  Does that make any
sense?

I love this section in particular: it's about the inadequacy of words to
express grief; and yet at the same time words are the only tool we have.  So
what can you do?  Wrap yourself in words, like weeds.  Weeds, as in mourning
dress, but also weeds as in the plants that clog an untended garden.  Words,
too, like narcotics, numbing the pain.  And what is this poem, but words?
The grief is literally too large to be contained here, but somehow he has to
find a way to cram it in, so he knows his project will never work: it's
"given outline, and no more".  In short, words must fail, yet _must_
succeed.  There's a lot of punch packed into these twelve lines.

Mark.

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Sestina -- Elizabeth Bishop

Guest poem sent in by Mark Penney

(Poem #1799) Sestina September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears and the rain that beats on the roof of the house were both foretold by the almanac, but only known to the grandmother. The iron kettle sings on the stove. She cuts some bread and says to the child, It’s time for tea now; but the child is watching the teakettle’s small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house. Tidying up, the old grandmother hangs up the clever almanac on its string. Birdlike, the almanac hovers half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother and her teacup full of dark brown tears. She shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove. It was to be, says the Marvel Stove. I know what I know, says the almanac. With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother. But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself about the stove, the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child has carefully placed in the front of the house. Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house. -- Elizabeth Bishop

I was amazed to discover that Minstrels had never run this poem.

Like it says, it’s a sestina; Minstrels has run a couple before, notably the
awesome Shrinking Lonesome Sestina by Miller Williams [Poem #904]. There’s an
explanation of the form there; if that’s not enough for you, you could also
try googling "sestina", which will send you to all kinds of sites that’ll
have you writing them in no time.

I love this one because it uses the form so gloriously.  Look at the six key
words:  house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, tears.  Five homey,
mundane, comforting, cozy words, and "tears".  That choice right there tells
you that there’s something going on beneath the surface, that not all is
right with the world of grandmother and child and crayons and tea.  After
the second stanza, the tears aren’t even literal, but we’re still seeing
other things (the rain, the tea, the moon figures in the almanac, seeds)
likened to tears.  There’s an all-pervasive sadness there, even though the
surface imagery of the poem is so very cheery and homey.

And the relationship between grandmother and child is captured so
beautifully, too.

Classic Elizabeth Bishop; you wouldn’t mistake it for anyone else.

--Mark

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Fisher v. Lowe -- Michigan Court of Appeals

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney:

(Poem #1725) Fisher v. Lowe A wayward Chevy struck a tree Whose owner sued defendants three. He sued car's owner, driver, too, And insurer for what was due For his oak tree that now may bear A lasting need for tender care. The Oakland County Circuit Court, John N. O'Brian, J., set forth The judgment that defendants sought, And quickly an appeal was brought. Court of Appeals, J. H. Gillis, J., Gave thought and then had this to say: 1) There is no liability, Since No-Fault grants immunity, 2) No jurisdiction can be found Where process service is unsound; And thus the judgment, as it's termed Is due to be, and is Affirmed. [1] AUTOMOBILES k251.13 Defendant's Chevy struck a tree, There was no liability. The No-Fault Act comes into play, As owner and the driver say. Barred by the act's immunity, No suit in tort will aid the tree. Although the oak's in disarray, No court can make defendants pay. [2] PROCESS k4 No jurisdiction could be found, Where process service is unsound. In personam jurisdiction Was not even legal fiction Where plaintiff failed to well comply With rules of court that did apply. * * * J. H. GILLIS, Judge. We thought that we would never see A suit to compensate a tree. A suit whose claim in tort is prest, Upon a mangled tree's behest; A tree whose battered trunk was prest Against a Chevy's crumpled crest; A tree that faces each new day With bark and limb in disarray; A tree that may forever bear A lasting need for tender care. Flora lovers though we three, We must affirm the court's decree. Affirmed. -- Michigan Court of Appeals

 333 N.W. 2d 67 (Mich. App. 1983) (footnotes (in prose) omitted).

 Yes, this is an honest-to-goodness Michigan appellate court decision.  It's
still valid (though uninteresting) law, too.

 It's not the only time a judge has been inspired by a funny or silly or (in
this case) wildly frivolous lawsuit to launch into verse.  After a few
years, the starchy style you're pretty much forced to accept as a jurist
really begins to drag on some people, I guess.  But this one's a rarity, for
the following reasons:  (1) Usually, any poetry is written by the dissent,
with the majority opinion written in boring prose.  (2) For some reason,
this time the verse was infectious:  Thanks to Gillis's opinion (offered
unanimously by the three-judge panel), the author of the syllabus (the first
bit) and the headnotes (the little blurb summary bits with the numbers) were
also inspired to rhyme.  Lastly, (3) it's one of the two examples I know of
where not only is the opinion in verse, it is also a direct parody of a
specific poem.  (There's also "In Re Love," 61 B.R. 558 (Bankr. S. D. Fla.
1986),  which is a very good parody of The Raven, but that doesn't really
count since it's not real law.  The opinion is the judge denying his own sua
sponte motion-in English instead of legalese, that means it's a pointless
activity for the sole purpose of producing an opinion with no possible legal
ramifications.)

 Ah, poetic justice.

 --Mark

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Ariadne auf Naxos -- Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney, an excerpt
from:

(Poem #1679) Ariadne auf Naxos There is a land where all is pure, And this land is called The land of death. Here nothing is pure. All things suffer corruption. But soon a herald will come. Hermes is his name, his winged wand rules all souls. Like birds affrighted, like withered leaves before him they fly. O beautiful, peaceful god, See, Ariadne waits. Ah, from all pains and miseries must my heart be purified; then you will nod to me, your steps will reach my cave, on my eyes there falls a darkness, on my heart you'll lay your hand. In the regal festal garments that my mother wove for me, I will wrap my weary body, and this cave will be my tomb. But my soul in solemn silence follows its new-made lord, like a leaf by winds driven downward falling, gladly following. On my eyes there falls a darkness, darkness too will fill my heart, and within this cave my body richly robed alone will lie. It is you who will save me, my captive soul freed of this burden of being. Lift it from me. To you I will lose all myself with you will Ariadne dwell. -- Hugo von Hofmannsthal

This requires quite a bit of explanation.  It's Ariadne's "Es gibt ein
Reich" aria, from what is in many ways one of the strangest operas ever
written, Ariadne auf Naxos.  (More on how it's strange in a minute.)
Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) was an Austrian poet, responsible in his early
career for some fascinating and truly beautiful lyric poetry.  He abandoned
poetry, despairing of the power of language in a crumbling world, and turned
to drama, and ultimately opera, after he met Richard Strauss.  With Strauss
he wrote six operas, including at least four true masterpieces (Elektra, Der
Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau ohne Schatten), making this
one of the most productive artistic collaborations ever.  Without doubt,
Hofmannsthal's libretti are among the most poetic ever written, and can
stand alone in their own right.

Pre-First World War Viennese art has a certain unique flavor to it; this is
a background in which you have to read this poem (which was written in 1911
or 1912).  Vienna was becoming ever more illiberal, ever more reactionary.
Moreover, there was a sense of values being lost, of the society decaying
all around.  How do you react?  Do you wallow in it, becoming a champion of
the decadent and amoral?  Do you pine for the lost world?  Do you just
decide you want to die?  Do you instead try to shock the world around you
into seeing its failures?  Do you create an artistic fantasyland of
escapism?  Or can art even matter at all?  (Here I'm parroting (and probably
making a travesty of) the ideas in Carl Schorske's fascinating book
"Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture.")

This indecision about how to react to a dying world is captured pretty well
by Ariadne auf Naxos.  So anyway we have Ariadne, stranded by Theseus on
Naxos, waiting to die.  She's surrounded by three nymphs who do their best
to make her comfortable, but also by five commedia dell'arte characters
prancing around trying to cheer her up.  The commedia dell'arte characters
seem like they're from another play, and that's because they are.  In the
Prologue, we're told that the crotchety old fart who has commanded these
performances at his salon has decided that, in order to be over in time for
the fireworks at 9:00 sharp, the opera seria and the improv comedy are going
to have to be performed at the same time on the same stage. Anyway,
ultimately it's not Hermes who shows up to get Ariadne, but Bacchus.  Love
conquers all, Ariadne winds up sailing off into the sunset with the God of
Partying, and the commedia guys get the last laugh.  (It's not nearly as
funny as it sounds, unfortunately, but by golly is it beautiful.)

The translation above is (mostly) an unattributed public domain translation.
Like a lot of translations of opera libretti, it's designed to be sung to
the original music, so the main goal of the translator was to reproduce
Hofmannsthal's rhythm, not his meaning.  This results in some sort of
dubious readings of a few lines.  I've "fixed" a few of the most egregious
departures from the sense of the original, since I know no one is going to
be singing this version.  In German, it's very beautiful, almost
heartbreakingly so, though in context it's impossible to take Ariadne 100%
seriously.  Auf Deutsch:

 Es gibt ein Reich, wo alles rein ist
 Es hat auch einen Namen:
 Totenreich.
 Hier ist nichts rein!
 Hier kam alles zu allem!
 Bald aber naht ein Bote,
 Hermies heissen sie hin.
 Du schoener, stiller Gott!
 Sieh! Ariadne wartet!
 Ach, von allen wilden Schemrzen
 muss das Herz gereinigt sein,
 dann wird dein Gesicht mir nicken,
 wird dein Schritt vor meiner Hoehle,
 Dunkel wird auf meinen augen,
 deine Hand auf meinem Herzen sein.
 In den schoenen Feierkleidern,
 die mir meine Mutter gab,
 diese Glieder werden bleiben,
 stille Hoehle wird mein Grab.
 Aber lautlos meine Seele
 folget ihrem neuen Herrn,
 wie ein leichtes Blatt im Winde
 folgt hinunter, folgt so gern.
 Dunkel wird auf meinen Augen,
 und in meinem Herzen sein.
 Diese Glieder werden bleiben,
 schoen geschmueckt und ganz allein.
 Du wirst mich befreien,
 mir selber mich geben,
 dies lastende Leben,
 du nimm es von mir.
 An dich werd' ich mich ganz verlieren,
 bei dir wird Ariadne sein.

 -- Mark

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Gay Chaps at the Bar -- Gwendolyn Brooks

Guest poem sent in by Mark Penney

[Typography note:  the inscription is right-justified in my copy; I've
tried to reproduce this by tabbing over twice.]

(Poem #1651) Gay Chaps at the Bar ...and guys I knew in the States, young officers, return from the front crying and trembling. Gay chaps at the bar in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York... --Lt. William Couch in the South Pacific We knew how to order. Just the dash Necessary. The length of gaiety in good taste. Whether the raillery should be slightly iced And given green, or served up hot and lush. And we knew beautifully how to give to women The summer spread, the tropics of our love. When to persist, or hold a hunger off. Knew white speech. How to make a look an omen. But nothing ever taught us to be islands. And smart, athletic language for this hour Was not in the curriculum. No stout Lesson showed how to chat with death. We brought No brass fortissimo, among our talents, To holler down the lions in this air. -- Gwendolyn Brooks

Leading off with the form, since it's so arresting:  This is a sonnet,
the first (and title) poem in a sequence of twelve sonnets Brooks wrote
based on letters she received from black American soldiers during the
Second World War.  (The other eleven are just as remarkable.)  The poem
doesn't scan in places, and it uses off-rhyme rather than true rhyme,
but more on these features later.  The rhyme scheme is a slight
variation on the Petrarchian pattern, abba cddc efggef.  The break
between the octet and sestet is not only preserved, but used by Brooks
to tremendous effect.  The octet is a brilliant, wry evocation of the
familiar life of the "gay chaps at the bar," where they are absolute
masters of their world.  But then, in the sestet, we see how totally
unprepared they are and unnerved they are by -- war.  This is a poem
about disjuncture, about a world gone crazy.

The imperfect scansion and off-rhyme help emphasize this, in a
way--they're emblematic of a struggle to make experiences that defy
rationality obey rational rules.  "Islands" and "talents," let's face
it, don't rhyme, just as a bar in Manhattan doesn't "rhyme" with a
firefight in Guadalcanal.  But still somehow, you have to make it hold
together.  Does that make sense?

I love the line "But nothing ever taught us to be islands."  Of course
it's a reference to John Donne's Meditation 17.  It's also a reference
to the nature of America's war.  (If you were a Marine in 1943, chances
are your life consisted of island after bitter deadly island in an
endless chain off beyond the horizon to your death.)  Nothing ever
taught these men to detach themselves from humanity, which the war is
forcing them to do.  And likewise, nothing ever taught them what they
need to fight such an alien and unforgiving war, to kill and die on hot,
malarial islands on the opposite side of the world.  On that note,
consider also the contrast between "raillery . . . served up hot and
lush" (or "the hot tropics of our love") and the real tropics and hot,
lush jungles of the islands on which there's no way at all to "holler
down the lions in this air."

[Biography]

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000).  The poem I sent in a few weeks ago was
the first by Brooks that Minstrels had run.  But I forgot to give
biographical info.

There's a very good biography and tons of criticism, including of this
poem, at
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brooks/brooks.htm

There's another biography that's not quite as extensive but is less
likely to go away, at
[broken link] http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C07030F

--Mark

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We Real Cool -- Gwendolyn Brooks

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney:

(Poem #1626) We Real Cool THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon. -- Gwendolyn Brooks

"We Real Cool" is virtually ubiquitous in American schoolbooks, and when I
was an American who read schoolbooks, I was unimpressed.  I pretty much
didn't get what was so wonderful.  I mean, there's nothing TO get, right?
Well now I'm older, and I know ever so much better.

First things first: It's an extremely economical group portrait of these
seven young men.  Without really telling you anything about them, this poem
tells you everything about them: their fears, their ambitions, who they
think they are versus who they really are.  (How did I know they were young
men?  It doesn't say that.  Yet you know.)  The repeated "We" at the end of
each line simultaneously displays a certain bravado and a distinct
uncertainty about the group identity (or even, as an example of protesting
too much, whether there's a group identity at all.  Who is this We they're
so insistent about?)  Repeated as it is, the We gets smaller and
smaller--the poet has in fact said that the "we" is supposed to be read in a
small and uncertain way.

Oh, and if you ever run into someone who tells you that lineation and
punctuation in a poem doesn't matter, point to this poem to set them
straight.  If the "we" went at the beginning of each line, this would be a
much worse poem, wouldn't it?  It would devolve simply into a list.  With
the "we" at the end, and unpunctuated, that word becomes sort of a question
as well as a refrain.

Also, if there's ever any doubt that rhythm can add meaning to a poem, again
point here.  The jazzy, syncopated rhythm of this poem is a huge part of the
portrait of these guys.  You can picture them thinking these thoughts, to
the tune of whatever beat is in their heads.

Brooks got a little flak for the juxtaposition of "left school" and "die
soon," as some thought of this as the then middle-aged poet passing judgment
on her subject (and thus her community).  But I don't think so.  I think
that these are just components of this swaggering yet fragile group identity
that masks the individual fear and uncertainty that is nevertheless still
present.

My comments are now longer than the poem by about a factor of fifty, so I'll
shut up now.

--Mark

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Frost at Midnight -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Guest poem sent in by Mark Penney

All this Romantic poetry brought me back to my favorite Romantic poet of
them all, particularly since it's really cold here tonight:

(Poem #1606) Frost at Midnight The frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud--and hark, again! Loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings: save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed! So calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought. But O! how oft, How oft, at school, with most believing mind, Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birth-place and the old church-tower, Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I, till the soothing things I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams! And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mock study on my swimming book: Save if the door half opened, and I snatched A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up, For still I hoped to see the stranger's face, Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike! Dear babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought. My babe so beautiful! It thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes! For I was reared In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe! Shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal teacher! He shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

One of the great things about the Romantics is their spectacular reinvention
of blank verse.  You could read "Frost at Midnight" almost without the
awareness that there was conscious effort put into the meter. It's just a
guy, looking out the window, watching his world freeze over, admiring its
beauty, and then letting his mind wander from there.  And yet it's in this
most astoundingly beautiful and perfect, yet conversational, blank verse.

Coleridge notes that films in one's grate are referred to as "strangers,
supposed to portend the arrival of some absent friend."

This poem captures the perfect beauty and stillness of a cold winter night
better than any other poem I know.  It's so still that the frost actually
represents action; it's practically a living thing, performing its secret
ministry.  And then it's something so small and quiet as the motion of the
film in the grate that starts Coleridge's own mind working--quietly too, in
its own way.  A masterpiece.

-Mark

[Biography]

Minstrels has run three Coleridge poems before, but none since 2000;
none of the previous posts contain anything at all in the way of
biography.  I'm not the Britannica, but here goes:  Coleridge
(1772-1834) was a contemporary and close friend of Wordsworth's; in 1798
the two poets wrote and published the seminal book Lyrical Ballads,
which is generally regarded as the founding document of English
Romanticism.  (The full text is online in several places; go read it!)
Coleridge is also notable as a literary critic and theorist; his
Biographia Literaria is the seminal work in that area.  The most famous
Coleridge poems are undoubtedly Kubla Khan, The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner, and this one.

[Links]

  http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/ has another biography and a
selection of Coleridge's works

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Sonnet XXIII: Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint -- John Milton

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney :

(Poem #1602) Sonnet XXIII: Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the old Law did save, And such as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind; Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shin'd So clear as in no face with more delight. But oh! As to embrace me she inclin'd, I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night. -- John Milton

You ask for old poems, I deliver.  This one got missed somehow; the other
famous Milton sonnet we're missing is "How soon hath Time," but I don't like
that one.

This one I've always loved, ever since I first encountered it in high
school. It helps to know that the "saint" in question is Milton's second
wife, whom he'd married when he was already blind.  So the dream in which he
says he sees her is doubly miraculous; it also adds that extra punch to "day
brought back my night."

I love that last line, by the way.  It's one of those lines that happen
every so often that make Milton, despite all the attendant aggravations of
reading him, more than worth the trouble.  The poem creates this shimmering,
white, pure vision of the unseen wife, just beyond reach like a Tantalus
torture.  That last line makes so clear the agony of loss, which he probably
experiences over and over again every time he wakes without her.  On the
flip side, however, we see that heaven is (in the mean time) attainable for
Milton in the form of his dreams.

Obligatory form geekery:  Milton preferred Petrarchian to Shakespearian
sonnet form: the rhyme scheme is abba abba cdc dcd, which is a slight
variation on the usual Petrarchian form for the sestet (cde cde or cde dce).
Unusually for Milton, there's not a real clear change of mood or subject
between the eight and the six.

The Classical reference to Alcestis: she died but was stolen from Hades by
Hercules and restored to her husband Admetus.  The Biblical reference is to
the Levitical purification rite after childbirth; also, with the white robe,
a further reference to the purification of the Resurrection (!).

--Mark

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Voyages - I -- Hart Crane

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney:

(Poem #1597) Voyages - I Above the fresh ruffles of the surf Bright striped urchins flay each other with sand. They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks, And their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed Gaily digging and scattering. And in answer to their treble interjections The sun beats lightning on the waves, The waves fold thunder on the sand; And could they hear me I would tell them: O brilliant kids, frisk with your dog, Fondle your shells and sticks, bleached By time and the elements; but there is a line You must not cross nor ever trust beyond it Spry cordage of your bodies to caresses Too lichen-faithful from too wide a breast. The bottom of the sea is cruel. -- Hart Crane

Comment:

The archives have strangely neglected Hart Crane; there's been just one of
his poems before.  He died very young (32) and his oeuvre is small -- the
Complete Poems of Hart Crane is just 250 pages -- but still, it seems weird
to ignore one of the seminal poets of the first half of the 20th century.

Crane is one of those people (Sylvia Plath is another, Rimbaud too) where
knowing the poet's biography hugely changes the way you read the poetry.
But ignore what you know about HC for a moment (if you know anything at all,
that is), because this is a great poem even without reading Crane's life
into it.  I love the way this poem captures the fundamental innocence of
children playing on the beach, while simultaneously pointing out the
inherent lack of innocence in the scene.  Even the kids' play itself is less
than innocent: "conquest," "scattering," "crumble," etc.; and they're
playing with sticks "bleached by time and the elements."  The surf and the
sun, normally pleasant images, are transformed by Crane into a thunderstorm.
The third stanza, of course, gives you the reason for all this
transformation of a happy day at the beach into a grim foreboding:  "there
is a line you must not cross," for the sea will seduce you and then drown
you.

"The bottom of the sea is cruel" has a grim certainty about it that
contrasts mightily with the fluidity of all the imagery that comes before
it.  It's almost like the poem is betraying you, in the same way that the
speaker says that the sea will.

Is the speaker of the poem being overprotective?  Overly worried about these
kids?  How, after all, can he know from experience that "the bottom of the
sea is cruel"?  Or is the sea being used as a metaphor for lost innocence in
a larger sense?  I love the ambiguities in this poem.

And then there's the fact that when Crane wrote the "Voyages" sequence (this
poem and five others that follow it) he was having an affair with a Danish
sailor.  "There is a line you must not cross"?  Oodles of ink have been used
up, in academic circles, arguing about what "Voyages" might or might not
have to say on the subject of homosexuality.  And then there's the eerie
fact that Crane committed suicide by jumping off a ship . . . You see what I
mean about how the biography changes the poem.

--Mark

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Auld Lang Syne -- Robert Burns

Guest poem sent in by Mark Penney

(Poem #1585) Auld Lang Syne Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne! Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne. And surely ye'll be your pint stowp! And surely I'll be mine! And we'll tak a cup o'kindness yet, For auld lang syne. For auld, &c. We twa hae run about the braes, And pou'd the gowans fine; But we've wander'd mony a weary fit, Sin' auld lang syne. For auld, &c. We twa hae paidl'd in the burn, Frae morning sun till dine; But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin’ auld lang syne. For auld, &c. And there's a hand, my trusty fere! And gie's a hand o’ thine! And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught, For auld lang syne. For auld, &c. -- Robert Burns

     (to a traditional Scottish tune)

I was looking through the archives, and was surprised not to find this.  In
honor of the season, you too can sing the third verse while everyone else at
the party stares at you like the geek that you are!

Yes, it's by the poet Robert Burns (well sort of, maybe--see below), best
known for the one about the mouse.  There is a good selection of his other
work in the archives.

Authorship and text are both problematic.  As to authorship, Burns claimed
to his publisher that he was transcribing an old traditional Scottish song.
However, no documentation of this older song has ever been found.  (There
are, however, older but much-different songs that contain a few of the lines
above, which were probably known to Burns.)  At minimum, we're fairly
certain that Burns wrote the two stanzas that begin "We twa", since he later
acknowledged having written both of them.  Some but not all authorities
think he wrote most of the rest as well.

As to text, there’s no agreement whatever on the order of the stanzas (I've
found three different versions with three different orderings).  Moreover,
Burns submitted several manuscripts to his publisher with slight variations
in the words; older versions had "jo" in place of "dear" in the chorus, for
example.

The tune we know is a very old Scottish tune, which far predates Burns.

Seventy percent or so of the Scottish dialect in this poem is easy to figure
out if you simply recite in a very thick accent and listen to what you're
saying (it's phonetic, mostly).  About half the rest can be found in a
decent dictionary.  As for the remainder: a pint-stowp is a tankard, a gowan
is a daisy, "fit" here means "foot", and a gude-willie waught (lit.,
"good-will-y draft") is a friendly beer.

Final remark: I love the fact that everyone sings it with at least a few
apparently incorrect words.

--Mark

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Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night -- Walt Whitman

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney :

(Poem #1559) Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night Vigil strange I kept on the field one night; When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day, One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look I shall never forget, One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground, Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle, Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my way, Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,) Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind, Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battle-field spreading, Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night, But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed, Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands, Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade -- not a tear, not a word, Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier, As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole, Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death, I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,) Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd, My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form, Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet, And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited, Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim, Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,) Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten'd, I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket, And buried him where he fell. -- Walt Whitman

      This is one of Whitman's tremendous Civil War poems, which were
collected at the time as Drum Taps.  Drum Taps, like virtually all of
Whitman's poetry, eventually was absorbed into the amorphous blob that is
Leaves of Grass, in this case the fourth edition.  One of many remarkable
things about these poems is that they aren't preachy; that is, they don't
overtly take a stand on war in general or the Civil War in particular, they
merely describe.  Whitman's views on the war are left for you to infer.
(Compare this to Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon.)  The whole of Drum Taps
is much more than the sum of its parts, as all this description has an
undeniably powerful cumulative effect.  But "Vigil Strange," one of the
best, can easily stand on its own as a representative of the rest.

      As with all of Whitman's good poems, free verse does not mean
structureless verse.  "Vigil Strange" begins and ends with a short line,
bookending the description in between.  The lines that begin with "vigil"
and an inversion ("Vigil strange," "Vigil wondrous" and "Vigil final") in
effect divide this poem into three sections -- in plot terms, roughly that's
the battle, the vigil, and the burial.

      The speaker of the poem, by the way, is obviously not Whitman, who was
a non-combatant during the war. (He was a nurse; his non-fictional war
memoirs comprise the interesting part of his prose work Specimen Days.)

      The relationship between the speaker and the dead soldier is
complicated and ambiguous (another Whitman signature).  It's not altogether
clear that they are, biologically speaking, father and son, for there are
too many other choices, in particular suggested by the undeniable hints of
eroticism.  At the very least, we can say that the boy (for obviously he was
quite young) represented many things to the speaker, who chooses a variety
of words to describe the relationship-"my son," "my comrade," and most
interestingly, "my soldier," as if the boy was the speaker's protector.
Mirroring this, the speaker's reaction to the death goes through phases:
near indifference in the face of the "even-contested battle," followed by
the deepest sorrow of the all-night vigil, finally followed by stoic
acceptance:  the burial is of "my soldier," not "my son."  At the final
analysis, the altogether personal reaction to a death just retreats into the
fabric of the war, the "battle-field spreading," and at daybreak the speaker
must reluctantly bury his comrade/son/soldier where he fell, and become once
again a soldier himself.

      Interesting how the night fits into things: The imagery of night and
stars is intertwined with the speaker's grieving: the dead boy's face is
first seen "in the starlight," as "cool blew the moderate night-wind."  Time
during the vigil is marked only by the revolution of the stars in the
firmament.  By contrast, "bathed by the rising sun," the speaker abandons
grieving and turns to the practical matter of burial.  It is only at night,
when not fighting, that the speaker can allow himself the luxury of human
emotions; during the day he is a soldier who cannot grieve.

      I've read this poem probably twenty times, and it never fails to
affect me.

Mark Penney.

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