Quiquern (Chapter Heading) -- Rudyard Kipling

(Poem #1685) Quiquern (Chapter Heading) The People of the Eastern Ice, they are melting like the snow -- They beg for coffee and sugar; they go where the white men go. The People of the Western Ice, they learn to steal and fight; They sell their furs to the trading-post; they sell their souls to the white. The People of the Southern Ice, they trade with the whaler's crew; Their women have many ribbons, but their tents are torn and few. But the People of the Elder Ice, beyond the white man's ken -- Their spears are made of the narwhal-horn, and they are the last of the Men! -- Rudyard Kipling

Note: From the Second Jungle Book

Kipling's Jungle Books are famous, and deservedly so. Stories of Mowgli and
his friends have enthralled generations of children, and are usually what
people think of when they think of the books - but Kipling also included
several other stories in the two books, at least one of which (Rikki Tikki
Tavi) has achieved a fame rivalling the "main" stories, and several others
of which foreshadowed later masterpieces like "Puck of Pook's Hill" and
"Kim".

When rereading the books, one of the things that always stands out is the
sheer brilliance of the chapter headings. They work very well as stand-alone
poems (indeed, we've run several here on Minstrels), but to truly appreciate
Kipling's work, I'd strongly advise putting aside a couple of evenings and
reading the Jungle Books through at a stretch - the interplay of story and
verse is wonderfully immersive. (That said, I'll admit that Quiquern was one
of the rare instances where the poem was a lot more memorable than the
story.)

Incidentally, has anyone else done something similar, by way of chapter
headings? Several authors have embedded verse within their stories (Tolkien
is a notable example, as is Carroll), but right now I can't think of anyone
who's done it in quite the way Kipling has.

martin

Links:

The Jungle Books are freely available online; here's today's story:
  http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.3/bookid.2742/sec.11/

All the chapter heading verses:
  http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/jungle_books.html

Read More

The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range -- Roger Waters

Guest poem sent in by Anyesha Mookherjee

(Poem #1684) The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range You have a natural tendency To squeeze off a shot You're good fun at parties You wear the right masks You're old but you still Like a laugh in the locker room You can't abide change And you're home on the range You opened the suitcase Behind the old workings To show off the magnum You deafened the canyon A comfort a friend Only upstaged in the end By the Uzi machine gun Does the recoil remind you Remind you of sex Old man what the hell you gonna kill next Old timer, who you gonna kill next I looked over Jordan and what did I see Saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris I swam in your pools And lay under your palm trees I looked in the eyes of the Indian Who lay on the Federal Building steps And through the range finder over the hill I saw the front line boys popping their pills Sick of the mess they find on their desert stage And the bravery of being out of range Yeah the question is vexed Old man what the hell you gonna kill next Old timer who you gonna kill next Hey bartender, over here Two more shots And two more beers Sir, turn up the TV sound The war has started on the ground Just love those laser guided bombs They're really great for righting wrongs You hit the target, win the game From bars 3,000 miles away 3,000 miles away We play the game With the bravery of being out of range We zap and maim With the bravery of being out of range We strafe the train With the bravery of being out of range We gain terrain With the bravery of being out of range We play the game With the bravery of being out of range -- Roger Waters

Note: From the album "Amused to Death"

A friend of mine once send me the lyrics to this song after a heated
discusssion on modern day war. It has remained with me and it seems more
relevant now than it did six years back when I read it for the first time.
The vivid imagery of modern war which is fought with an invisible enemy
juxtaposed with the complex psychology of those who fight it is truly
moving.

Anyesha

[Links]

Biography:
  http://www.ingsoc.com/waters/info/biography.html (I like the disclaimer!)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Waters

Read More

Portrait of a Lady -- T S Eliot

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul:

(Poem #1683) Portrait of a Lady Thou hast committed -- Fornication: but that was in another country, And besides, the wench is dead. (The Jew of Malta) I Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon You have the scene arrange itself -- as it will seem to do -- With "I have saved this afternoon for you"; And four wax candles in the darkened room, Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead, An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid. We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips. "So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul Should be resurrected only among friends Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room." - And so the conversation slips Among velleities and carefully caught regrets Through attenuated tones of violins Mingled with remote cornets And begins. "You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, And how, how rare and strange it is, to find In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends, [For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are!] To find a friend who has these qualities, Who has, and gives Those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you -- Without these friendships -- life, what cauchemar!" Among the windings of the violins And the ariettes Of cracked cornets Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own, Capricious monotone That is at least one definite "false note." - Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance, Admire the monuments, Discuss the late events, Correct our watches by the public clocks. Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks. II Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in his fingers while she talks. "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands"; (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks) "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see." I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea. "Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall My buried life, and Paris in the Spring, I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world To be wonderful and youthful, after all." The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune Of a broken violin on an August afternoon: "I am always sure that you understand My feelings, always sure that you feel, Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand. You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel. You will go on, and when you have prevailed You can say: at this point many a one has failed. But what have I, but what have I, my friend, To give you, what can you receive from me? Only the friendship and the sympathy Of one about to reach her journey's end. I shall sit here, serving tea to friends..." I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends For what she has said to me? You will see me any morning in the park Reading the comics and the sporting page. Particularly I remark An English countess goes upon the stage. A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance, Another bank defaulter has confessed. I keep my countenance, I remain self-possessed Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired Reiterates some worn-out common song With the smell of hyacinths across the garden Recalling things that other people have desired. Are these ideas right or wrong? III The October night comes down; returning as before Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees. "And so you are going abroad; and when do you return? But that's a useless question. You hardly know when you are coming back, You will find so much to learn." My smile falls heavily among the bric-à-brac. "Perhaps you can write to me." My self-possession flares up for a second; This is as I had reckoned. "I have been wondering frequently of late (But our beginnings never know our ends!) Why we have not developed into friends." I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark Suddenly, his expression in a glass. My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark. "For everybody said so, all our friends, They all were sure our feelings would relate So closely! I myself can hardly understand. We must leave it now to fate. You will write, at any rate. Perhaps it is not too late. I shall sit here, serving tea to friends." And I must borrow every changing shape To find expression ... dance, dance Like a dancing bear, Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape. Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance -- Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand With the smoke coming down above the housetops; Doubtful, for a while Not knowing what to feel or if I understand Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon... Would she not have the advantage, after all? This music is successful with a "dying fall" Now that we talk of dying -- And should I have the right to smile? -- T S Eliot

When I was 16 I was in love with Prufrock [Poem #193 on the Minstrels].
Something about that poem's heady, singing combination of wit, imagery,
eloquence, insight, insecurity and despair spoke to me like nothing else in
my young life had ever done before. In those restless years, I identified
completely with Prufrock's confusion, with the delicate balance he tries to
strike between intellectual cynicism and deep-rooted yearning, with his
fundamentally adolescent struggle to force the self into a single, coherent
picture. As I wandered about muttering "No, I am not Prince Hamlet" under my
breath, the poem became for me a celebration of my own identity, a statement
of my own life more lucid than any I could have made myself.

At the time, I was relatively unimpressed with Portrait of a Lady. Oh, I
liked it well enough - but coming straight after Prufrock, I could not help
comparing the two, and Portrait seemed to pale in comparison.

As I have grown older, however, I have come to realise the true depth, the
incredible genius of the poem that follows Prufrock. The ten years that have
passed have made Prufrock seem a little too strident, a little too high
pitched while at the same time deepening my appreciation of Portrait. I
still love Prufrock, but love it as one loves the adventures of one's youth
- with an awe for its courage that is mingled with bemusement with its
ideas. In Prufrock, Eliot is still struggling with the demons of self-worth
- he is a young man who believes, but pretends to laugh at his own beliefs.
That struggle continues in Portrait, but by now Eliot has really learned to
laugh at himself in a way he never could in Prufrock. There is more
resignation in Portrait, but less despair; rather there is an profound
recognition of the fundamental ridiculousness of our lives and loves. Even
at its most frenzied ("And I must borrow every changing shape / to find
expression") Eliot cannot escape the knowledge that all our fine poetics are
little better than the circus tricks of animals, all our most heartfelt
feelings as trivial in the larger world as headlines from some distant land
("A greek was murdered at a Polish dance")

Where Prufrock is a landscape, Portrait is, precisely, a portrait. It is a
deeply intimate poem, one "that should be resurrected only among friends /
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom / that is rubbed and
questioned in the concert room". Where Prufrock is grand and symphonic,
Portrait is a delicate etude filled with the softest of touches - line after
memorable line, Eliot delivers the most exquisite images - fingers twisting
a lilac blossom, the smell of hyacinths across the garden, the bric a brac
on a dressing table. This is Eliot at his most musical - the perfection of
the rhythm, the easy, unobtrusive flow of the most intricate rhymes, the ebb
and stress of the words exactly what it should be. And, through it all, a
speaking voice that is extraordinarily true and clear.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the poem, however, is the essential
duality of the whole thing - the almost magical way that Eliot makes you see
(so simply, with such easy deftness) both the external world of manners and
the internal world of the narrator's consciousness - showing them to you not
as two seperate identities, but as two halves of the same continuum,
inextricably connected ("I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall
remark / suddenly, his expression in a glass"). This duality informs
Prufrock as well, but there is less irony in Prufrock, and the inner voice
is more a combatant than an amused, impartial observer.

In the end, I can praise this poem no higher than to say that of all the
poems in 'Prufrock and other observations' (a collection that includes The
Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock [Poem # 193], La Figlia Che Piange [Poem #
9], Preludes [Poem # 107] and Rhapsody on a Windy Night [Poem # 466] not to
mention the delightful Conversation Galante and the incredible imagery of
Morning at the Window) Portrait of a Lady is my
favourite.

Aseem.

P.S. It may seem strange to speak of one poem (this one) almost entirely in
terms of another (Prufrock), but I believe that the contrast between the two
(and the linkages between them) are key to understanding both.

Read More

The Ocean -- Dar Williams

Guest poem sent in by J. Goard ()

(Poem #1682) The Ocean When I went to your town on the wide open shore, Oh, I must confess, I was drawn, I was drawn to the ocean. I thought it spoke to me. It said, "Look at us: we're not churches, not schools, Not skating ponds, swimming pools, But we've lost people, haven't we though?" Oh, that's what the ocean can know of a body, And that's when I came back to town. This town is a song about you. You don't know how lucky you are. You don't know how much I adore you. You are a welcoming back from the ocean. I went back to the ocean today, With my books and my papers, I went to the rocks by the ocean. But the weather changed quickly. The ocean said, "What are you trying to find? I don't care, I'm not kind, I have bludgeoned your sailors, I have spat out their keepsakes. Oh, it's ashes to ashes, but always the ocean." But the ocean can't come to this town. This town is a song about you. You don't know how lucky you are. You don't know how much I adore you. You are a welcoming back from the ocean. For the ones that can know you so well Are the ones that can swallow you whole. I have a good, and I have an evil. I thought the ocean, the ocean thought nothing. You are a welcoming back from the ocean. I didn't go back today. I wanted to show you that I was more land than water. I went to pick flowers. Oh, I brought them to you – "Look at me, look at them, With their salt up the stem." But you frowned, and I smiled, as I tried to arrange them. You said, "Let me tell you the song of this town." You said, "Everything closes at five. After that, well, you've just got the bars. You don't know how precious you are, Walking around with your little shoes dangling. I am the one who lives with the ocean. It's where we came from, you know, And sometimes, I just want to go back. After a day, we'll drink till we're drowning, Walk to the ocean, wade in in our work boots, Wade in our work boots, try to finish the job. You don't know how precious you are. I am the one who lives with the ocean. You don't know how I am the one. You don't know how I am the one. -- Dar Williams

Dar Williams is a singer-songwriter whose work is typically classified as
folk-pop.  Her songs range from the simple and melodic to the richly
orchestrated to the rather "talky", but her writing presents a consistently
high standard of poetic craft.  (Some other outstanding examples of musical
poetry include "When Sal's Burned Down", "February", "The End of the
Summer", and "Southern California Wants to be Western New York".)  I have
heard second-hand that she has referred to "The Ocean" as her "only rock
song"; this assertion seems somewhat more plausible up to the time of the
song's release (her second of five albums) then it does today, but even so,
it strikes me that its consistently anapestic verse speaks to a greater
connection with folk or blues.

In "The Ocean", we are presented with a narrator and an interlocutor (most
likely a lover but possibly a close friend or relative); the narrator's
perspective is developed until the third full verse, in which a presumably
taciturn interlocutor is moved to challenge this perspective as highly
presumptuous.  In general terms, the narrator is revealed as an artsy or
intellectual type ("my books and my papers"; "little shoes dangling") with
volatile emotions, while the interlocutor is more of a stolid, reliable
worker.

Irony abounds in this work.  Take, for example, the contrast between the
narrator's plea, "I wanted to show you that I was more land than water", and
her revealed preference for drawing attention to "the salt up the stem",
i.e., the visible effects of the ocean.  Similarly, the insistence that "the
ocean can't come to this town" is belied by the actions of the very person
who asserts it, in essence bringing the ocean into the town by incessantly
expressing her despair.

Yet we can pursue this analysis a step further: an analogy seems warranted
between the distressing effect of the ocean on the narrator, and the effect
of the narrator on people close to her.  From this vantage point, the song
takes on a more sinister tone.  (Do you like my mixed metaphor? :-> )  Given
the narrator's clear identification with the ocean in the first verse, and
her revealed condescension ("You don't know how lucky you are...") and
carelessness toward a loved one, the frightening description of the ocean in
the second verse might be seen as a (wholly unaware) self- description of a
person with sociopathic tendencies, who believes that she is uniquely
attuned to despair and angst, and who has a generally draining effect on
others.

"The Ocean" is among Williams' most profound work, and likely her most
intricate.  In its literary structure, my first comparisons would be to the
dramatic monologues of Robert Browning ("My Last Duchess"; "Soliloquy of the
Spanish Cloister"), and to Nabokov novels such as "Lolita" and "Pale Fire",
with disturbed and delusional narrators bouncing their heavily filtered
worldviews against much more balanced, sympathetic, and curious characters.

One final point: punctuation of the final line (okay, the final two
identical lines) is difficult, and any choice risks misleading.  The rhythm
of this line, as with the earlier "You don't know how..." lines, has the
expected two-syllable pause in its anapestic rhythm ( ' - - ' / ' - - ' ),
so that it could be interpreted either as two sentences (i.e., "You don't
know how to live with the ocean.  I am the one who knows.") or as one (i.e,
"You're not aware of the fact that (or the way that) I live with the
ocean.")  I personally prefer the latter sense, but it's probably even
better that there's a lasting ambiguity.

J Goard

[Links]

There's an official Dar Williams site at http://www.darwilliams.com/

Read More

The Piano Has Been Drinking -- Tom Waits

Guest poem submitted by Pradeep Sarin:

(Poem #1681) The Piano Has Been Drinking The piano has been drinking, my necktie is asleep And the combo went back to New York, the jukebox has to take a leak And the carpet needs a haircut, and the spotlight looks like a prison break And the telephone's out of cigarettes, and the balcony is on the make And the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking... And the menus are all freezing, and the light man's blind in one eye And he can't see out of the other And the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid, and he showed up with his mother And the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking As the bouncer is a sumo wrestler cream-puff casper milktoast And the owner is a mental midget with the IQ of a fence post 'cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking... And you can't find your waitress with a Geiger counter And she hates you and your friends and you just can't get served without her And the box-office is drooling, and the bar stools are on fire And the newspapers were fooling, and the ash-trays have retired because the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking The piano has been drinking, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me... -- Tom Waits

        From the album "Small Change", 1976.

Background Sketch:

Through most of his musical career, Tom Waits has combined a lyrical focus
on desperate, lowlife characters with a persona that seems to embody the
same lifestyle, which he sings about in a raspy, gravelly voice. This song
is track #5 on one of his earlier albums "Small Change" (1976). I find its
bitter-sweet combination of a down-and-out mood with a tumbling series of
humorous metaphors particularly picturesque. As he tumbles through the
lines, the poetry arises almost by accident - brought to life by the image
of a piano player singing in a run down bar.

There is underlying structure to his imagery: he brings you in to the room
with playful metaphors on physical objects that you would normally encounter
in a bar. The middle of the poem first turns introspective - the piano
players' crib with his mistuned piano, and then reaches out to grasp at lost
friendship. The persitent complaint of the drunk piano hangs the whole thing
together.

Having been born twenty years after 'Howl' was published, when growing up I
always felt envious of my elders for having missed out on the whole Beat
poetry phenomenon. To a lot of people my age, Tom Waits represents the
'post-Beat' experience - we are not directly connected to the events and
social conditions that inspired much of the beat generation. We arrived on
the scene when the Grateful Dead were just exiting - but the basic human
needs that Beat poetry spoke to still exist, and Tom Waits has managed, in
my opinion, to find a voice that speaks to those needs.

I was first introduced to Tom Waits through a documentary on Beat poetry
made by Ron Mann, called 'Poetry in Motion'. It's a somewhat iconoclastic
work, juxtaposing the likes of Allen Ginsberg with William S Burroughs, John
Cage, Micheal Ondaatje and Tom Waits. It brings home the message that as
much as we can appreciate poetry in written form, to hear a poet orating his
or her poem - often extempore, is an experience of an entirely different
kind. To me, the songs of Tom Waits epitomize poetry as an oral art form.
Some of his earlier songs were indeed recorded extempore - singing into a
ratty tape recorder sitting in his car driving across the california desert.

Of course, not all his songs are as dark - check out the playful 'Step Right
Up' on the same album "Small Change" or the laugh-out-loud funny 'Filipino
Box Spring Hog' on his recent album "Mule Variations". The latter is
especially funny given the story behind the song: it's a recounting of a
tradition he and his friends had of cooking up a hog strung on a trashed
box-spring in their penny-less youth.

Some informational links:
Ron Mann's documentary 'Poetry in Motion':
  http://www.filmreferencelibrary.ca/index.asp?layid=44&csid1=403&navid=46
There's also a 'Poetry in Motion II', which covers the poets that were
filmed for the first documentary, but not included in it.

Ron Mann's filmography (I like a lot of his work):
  http://www.filmreferencelibrary.ca/index.asp?layid=46&csid1=50&navid=46
and his production company
  [broken link] http://www.sphinxproductions.com/pages/index.html

Pradeep Sarin.

Read More

If Gray Had Had to Write His Elegy in the Cemetery of Spoon River Instead of in That of Stoke Poges -- Sir John Collings Squire

Guest poem sent in by Alan Pearmain

(Poem #1680) If Gray Had Had to Write His Elegy in the Cemetery of Spoon River Instead of in That of Stoke Poges The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The whippoorwill salutes the rising moon, And wanly glimmer in her gentle ray, The sinuous windings of the turbid Spoon. Here where the flattering and mendacious swarm Of lying epitaphs their secrets keep, At last incapable of further harm The lewd forefathers of the village sleep. The earliest drug of half-awakened morn, Cocaine or hashish, strychnine; poppy-seeds Or fiery produce of fermented corn No more shall start them on the day's misdeeds. For them no more the whetstone's cheerful noise, No more the sun upon his daily course Shall watch them savouring the genial joys, Of murder, bigamy, arson and divorce. Here they all lie; and, as the hour is late, O stranger, o'er their tombstones cease to stoop, But bow thine ear to me and contemplate The unexpurgated annals of the group. There are two hundred only: yet of these Some thirty died of drowning in the river, Sixteen went mad, ten others had D.T.s, And twenty-eight cirrhosis of the liver. Several by absent-minded friends were shot, Still more blew out their own exhausted brains, One died of a mysterious inward rot, Three fell off roofs, and five were hit by trains. One was harpooned, one gored by a bull-moose, Four on the Fourth fell victims to lock-jaw, Ten in electric chair or hempen noose Suffered the last exaction of the law. Stranger, you quail, and seem inclined to run; But, timid stranger, do not be unnerved; I can assure you that there was not one Who got a tithe of what he had deserved. Full many a vice is born to thrive unseen, Full many a crime the world does not discuss, Full many a pervert lives to reach a green Replete old age, and so it was with us. Here lies a parson who would often make Clandestine rendezvous with Claflin's Moll, And 'neath the druggist's counter creep to take A sip of surreptitious alcohol. And here a doctor, who had seven wives, And, fearing this ménage might seem grotesque, Persuaded six of them to spend their lives Locked in a drawer of his private desk. And others here there sleep who, given scope, Had writ their names large on the Scrolls of Crime, Men who, with half a chance, might haply cope With the first miscreants of recorded time. Doubtless in this neglected spot is laid Some village Nero who has missed his due, Some Bluebeard who dissected many a maid, And all for naught, since no one ever knew. Some poor bucolic Borgia here may rest, Whose poisons sent whole families to their doom Some hayseed Herod who, within his breast, Concealed the sites of many an infant's tomb. Types that the Muse of Masefield might have stirred, Or waked to ecstasy Gaboriau, Each in his narrow cell at last interred, All, all are sleeping peacefully below. · · · · · · Enough, enough! But stranger, ere we part, Glancing farewell to each nefarious bier, This warning I would beg you take to heart, 'There is an end to even the worst career!' -- Sir John Collings Squire

I first encountered this delightful if macabre parody of Gray's Elegy in Verse
and Worse, an anthology given to me my my girlfriend in 1972.  The mood pivots
from humour to dark reality; I have never visited a graveyard since without
looking at the stones, thinking of Bluebeard and the hayseed Herod and
wondering...

[Hilarious poem, and it ties with Poem #691 for the longest title in the
archive -- martin]

AP

[Links]

Biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Squire
Gray's Original: Poem #1091

Read More

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

Read More