Directive

Directive

Robert Frost

Back out of all of this now too much for us,

Back in a time made simple by the loss

Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off

Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,

There is a house that is no more a house

Upon a farm that is no more a farm

And in a town that is no more a town.

The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you

Who only has at heart your getting lost,

May seem as if it should have been a quarry --

Great monolithic knees the former town

Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.

And there's a story in a book about it:

Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels

The ledges show lines ruled southeast northwest,

The chisel work of an enormous Glacier

That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.

You must not mind a certain coolness from him

Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.

Nor need you mind the serial ordeal

Of being watched from forty cellar holes

As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.

As for the woods' excitement over you

That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,

Charge that to upstart inexperience.

Where were they all not twenty years ago?

They think too much of having shaded out

A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.

Make yourself up a cheering song of how

Someone's road home from work this once was,

Who may be just ahead of you on foot

Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.

The height of the adventure is the height

Of country where two village cultures faded

Into each other. Both of them are lost.

And if you're lost enough to find yourself

By now, pull in your ladder road behind you

And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.

Then make yourself at home. The only field

Now left's no bigger than a harness gall.

First there's the children's house of make believe,

Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,

The playthings in the playhouse of the children.

Weep for what little things could make them glad.

Then for the house that is no more a house,

But only a belilaced cellar hole,

Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.

This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.

Your destination and your destiny's

A brook that was the water of the house,

Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,

Too lofty and original to rage.

(We know the valley streams that when aroused

Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)

I have kept hidden in the instep arch

Of an old cedar at the waterside

A broken drinking goblet like the Grail

Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it,

So can't get saved, as Saint Mark says the mustn't.

(I stole the goblet from the children's playhouse.)

Here are your waters and your watering place.

Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.


It has been over two years, and I am finally posting another poem here. I must apologize for being so inconsistent with this blog. While fun, it is something that I do not often have time for. Certainly, I do not have the time for it as often as I would like to. I will try to post more frequently in the future, though.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

I Could Not Sleep For Thinking Of The Sky

I Could Not Sleep For Thinking Of The Sky

by John Masefield

I could not sleep for thinking of the sky,

The unending sky, with all its million suns

Which turn their planets everlastingly

In nothing, where the fire-haired comet runs.

If I could sail that nothing, I should cross

Silence and emptiness with dark stars passing;

Then, in the darkness, see a point of gloss

Burn to a glow, and glare, and keep amassing,

And rage into a sun with wandering planets,

And drop behind; and then, as I proceed,

See his last light upon his last moon's granites

Die to a dark that would be night indeed:

Night where my soul might sail a million years

In nothing, not even Death, not even tears.

-from Lollingdon Downs

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

A Poison Tree

A Poison Tree

by William Blake

I was angry with my friend,

I told my wrath, my wrath did end;

I was angry with my foe,

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Til it bore an apple bright;

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veil'd the pole:

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.

I'm just going to leave this hear for you to read and enjoy, and hopefully think about. Just let it sink in and take from it what you will, though I think the message is a fairly clear one in this case.

As always, I'm happy to include an analysis, should someone ask for it.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

The Passionate Nature

The Passionate Nature

Anonymous

With lips of a rose

And an embrace like firm vines

Ardor shall not wilt.

Just a little haiku for you all to tumble around in your heads. :)

She Was a Phantom of Delight

She Was a Phantom of Delight

by William Wordsworth

She was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely Apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;

Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;

A dancing Shape, an Image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon nearer view,

A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,

And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A Creature not too bright or good

For human nature's daily food;

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A Being breathing thoughtful breath,

A Traveller between life and death;

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;

A perfect Woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort, and command;

And yet a Spirit still, and bright

With something of angelic light.

Sorry, folks, but I don't have any sort of analysis for you all today! If I have time later, I may come back and edit some information in for you... we'll see. As always, if you request it, I'll do my best to provide it.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

Sudden Light

Sudden Light

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I have been here before,

But when or how I cannot tell;

I know the grass beyond the door,

The sweet keen smell,

The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,

How long ago I may not know:

But just when at the swallow's soar

Your neck turned so,

Some veil did fall - I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?

And shall not thus time's eddying flight

Still with our lives our love restore

In death's despite,

And day and night yield one delight once more?

This is a particularly fun poem, in my opinion. Each of the three stanzas are composed of five lines, meaning we can call it a cinquain, a quintet, or a quintain. I have always heard quintain used more frequently in this case, so that is what I prefer to use. Cinquain can also be used when speaking about a specific syllable-counting form, as well as a different French-originating verse form, so I typically try to avoid use of that term at all costs just to avoid unnecessary confusion. It is, however, technically correct.

The meter is mixed, and I think it lends a more casual feel to what may have otherwise been a bit serious and eerie. The syllabic break down of the first stanza is as follows:

Line 1: 6 syllables (trimeter)
Line 2: 8 syllables (tetrameter)
Line 3: 8 syllables (tetrameter)
Line 4: 4 syllables (dimeter)
Line 5: 10 syllables (pentameter)

This is mimicked in the next two stanzas, though not necessarily to a "T".

It has a base rhyme scheme of ababa, meaning that the first, third, and fifth lines are interlinked, whereas the second and fourth also share a rhyme. The internal rhyme scheme of the pentameters is something to be appreciated, too, though. Inside of all this carefully considered syllabic structure, weighed out words, and thoughtful subject matter, he took the time to give us this little treat, too. Rossetti really was a master of near any craft he took it upon himself to learn. For your convenience in reading, the internal rhymes are italicized below:

1st Pentameter: The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
2nd Pentameter: Some veil did fall - I knew it all of yore.
3rd Pentameter: And day and night yield one delight once more.

That's all the technical information I'll bore you with today. Let me know what you think!

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

John Anderson My Jo

John Anderson My Jo

by Robert Burns

John Anderson my jo¹, John,

When we were first acquent²,

Your locks were like the raven,

Your bonnie brow was brent³;

But now your brow is beld⁴, John,

Your locks are like the snaw,

But blessings on your frosty pow⁵,

John Anderson my jo!

John Anderson my jo, John,

We clamb the hill thegither,

And monie a cantie⁶ day, John,

We've had wi' ane anither;

Now we maun⁷ totter down, John,

And hand in hand we'll go,

And sleep thegither at the foot,

John Anderson my jo!

First update in quite some time, I know... but on the bright side, I think I'm becoming slightly more competent with the actual technical aspects of this little blog. For example, I know how to add footnotes, now. :)

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

---

1 jo: joy, sweetheart^↩
2 acquent: acquainted^↩
3 brent: smooth^↩
4 beld: bald^↩
5 pow: head^↩
6 cantie: cheerful^↩
7 maun: must^↩

So, I Got A Laptop for Christmas...

and I officially have no excuse not to make daily updates anymore. You can expect to be seeing many more posts from me. For real this time.
I promise.
Probably.

So, basically nothing has changed except for my technological situation... and I've added a few more volumes to my poetry collection.

There's more variety, I swear.

Small Song

Small Song

by Frances Frost

Morning is a little lass,

Her gay head yellow-curled,

Who jumps a rope of knotted flowers

Across the waking world.

Evening is a little boy

With dark wind-ruffled hair,

Who skips the stars like stones across

The darkling pond of air.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of Trees

by A. E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

I Am He That Walks With The Tender And Growing Night

I Am He That Walks With The Tender And Growing Night

by Walt Whitman

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,

I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom'd night - press close magnetic nourishing night!

Night of south winds - night of the large few stars!

Still nodding night - mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool breath'd earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of departed sunset - earth of the mountains misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping elbow'd earth - rich apple-blossom'd earth!

Smile, for your lover comes.

-from Song of Myself

Rather than providing an analysis, I thought that I'd do things a bit differently today. So here I will leave you just a bit of prompting in an effort to try and get your minds going and teasing out the meaning behind this poem for yourself.

I'll first note that this poem appeals to quite a few senses. Is there one in particular that it appeals more to? Why do you think that is? Is there a sense it does not appeal to?

What colors appear in this poem? What can you interpret from those colors: is the usage for literal description, do they contain a certain implied connotation, etc?

Apostrophe is a technique used in writing in which the speaker breaks off and directly addresses something decidedly abstract (an idea, a quality, a thing, an imaginary person). Due to this treatment of a concept as if it were a human & capable of response, many people tend to mistake it for personification. The two literary devices can often go hand in hand, but they are not limited as such. Personification is defined as the attribution of a nature or the characteristics of a human to something that is otherwise not, though it may also be taken as the representation of an abstract quality in fully human form. 

Whitman uses both techniques in this poem. To whom is Whitman speaking in lines 3-5? In lines 6-12?

To what end does he personify the night? The earth? Why do you think he chose those traits to lend them? What do you think he means by "elbow'd earth"?

And, just for my sake, what is your favorite line? Why?

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

All in All - A Special Saturday Scrutinization

All in All

Alfred Lord Tennyson

In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,

Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:

Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

It is the little rift within the lute,

That by and by will make the music mute,

And ever widening slowly silence all.

The little rift within the lover's lute,

Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit,

That rotting inward slowly moulders all.

It is not worth the keeping: let it go:

But shall it? answer, darling, anser no.

And trust me not at all or all in all.

- from Merlin and Vivien

All in All is a section within Merlin and Vivien, which in turn is a part of Tennyson's cycle retelling the legend of King Arthur and those themes related to the subject, Idylls of the King. A cycle, in literature, is really just a simple term for a collection of plays, poems, songs, or other writings recorded by one author and connected through their focus on the same set of characters or ideas.

Given how well known the tales of Arthur and his court are, I shall not bore anyone with excessive background details regarding the characters and situations. I will just say that Vivien, paramour to King Mark of Cornwall, was on quite the mission against Arthur. After insinuating herself into Guinevere's good graces through the use of pity and her falsely emphatic slandering of Mark, Vivien quickly found that while many would lend an ear to her libelous gossip on the relationship between the Queen and Lancelot it did nothing in gaining her the confidence of King Pendragon the younger. Merlin was another story. A tired, old man will only put up with so much whining before simply succumbing to an ardent woman.

Here we come to poem above, in which Vivien is pleading with Merlin to trust her with a secret which would give her power to leave him, in essence, dead to all but her.

Admittedly, the meaning of this poem is fairly straight forward. I do hope, though, that as you read that you will at least take care to pay attention to the symbolism used in the second and third stanzas. While blatant, taking note of these rhetorical devices and understanding their purposes and why they work to those purposes is a key step in becoming a more knowing and generally capable reader of poetry.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

Sonnet III

III

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother,

For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

But if thou live, rememer'd not to be,

Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

Sonnet II

II

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

They youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,

If thou couldst  answer, 'This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'

Proving his beauty by succession thine!

This were to be new made when thou art old,

And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

Sonnet I

I

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decrease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world's freshest ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content

And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like a deeper analysis of this poem, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

The Sonnet and Elizabethan Sonneteers

The Sonnet and Elizabethan Sonneteers

an excerpt from "The Yale Shakespeare, The Complete Works" 1993 ed.

"It was Petrarch (1307-1374) who made the sonnet the most popular form of the lyric during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Though sonnets had been written before him, notably by Dante, the vogue of Petrarch, overshadowing that of all other lyric poets ancient and modern, was carried far beyond 'this side idolatry.' His themes were love and beauty, a hopeless love thwarted by destiny and death. His followers and imitators were legion. Vagany, in his compendious bibliography of sixteenth-century French and Italian sonneteers, does not include them all, for no man has ever read them all or could survive if he made the attempt.

"Before the sonnet reached England, it came to France, where Ronsard and his contemporaries were deeply influenced by Italian poetry; and in Shakespeare's day it was largely through the French sonneteers that Petrarch affected English writers, though they made direct translations of Italian sonnets as well. The first English sonnets were written by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1518-1547), and were first published after their death in Tottel's Miscellany, 1557. As might be presumed, both these poets were confirmed admirers of Petrarch, and their sonnets showed it.

"The sonnet of Petrarch, commonly called the Italian sonnet, is a poem of fourteen lines divided into two parts of eight and six lines, the octave and the sestet. The octave was written abbaabba, while the sestet could have two or three rhymes, arranged in no fixed order save that the last two lines should not rhyme together. In the octave a thought, an emotion, a picture is completely presented and the verse sentence, so to speak, comes to an end. In the sestet, the explanation, the comment, the summing up of the whole matter is given. Wyatt attempted the Italian form, but found it too difficult  to write correctly, and his sonnets end in rhymed couplets. Surrey, more of a stylist, devised a new and simpler form for the sonnet - three quatrains with a concluding couplet, and with no attempt to preserve the division of the octave and sestet. As a simple trial will prove, it is much harder to write a sonnet in the Italian form than to compose three quatrains and a couplet; and as Elizabethans prized fluency, they preferred Surrey's form. In Shakespeare it reached its greatest beauty so that Surrey's form is now often called the 'Shakespearean' sonnet. It is interesting to notice that at times Shakespeare makes the break in the thought between the eighth and ninth lines that the Italian sonnet writers observed. This will be seen in 'When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,' No. 29, or better still, in several sonnets printed together with the sestet beginning invariably with 'O,' Nos. 21-23, 71, 72, 76.

"Apart from Shakespeare, the Elizabethan sonnet sequences most worthy of study are Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, 1591, Daniel's Delia, 1592, Drayton's Idea, 1594, and Spenser's Armoretti, 1595. To read them, or even their finest passages, but makes more apparent the supremacy of Shakespeare."

Announcement: Saturdays of Scrutiny

To get things flowing on this blog once more, I'll be attempting to infuse a bit of education here. I wonder, though.... perhaps opinion is a better word? Really, I just want to break down whatever wall it is that keeps this blog from becoming its own little forum of literary discussion.

I digress; I tend to have just a bit more free time on Saturdays, and as such I would like to use that time to provide my readers (few as there may be...) with a full rhetorical analysis of a work. I will, of course, continue taking requests as I mention at the end of each poetry post, but I would like to guarantee an analyzed work for you all to think about during your weekend.

Tomorrow will be my first Saturday of Scrutiny. Pretentious as the name sounds, keep in mind that I am more than willing to hear your thoughts and opinions on a work; I am well aware that mine is only one take on the meaning of whatever poem I post, and I love finding new ways to interpret a piece.

All that in mind, let's try this out and hopefully grow together as readers and poetry lovers. :)

Tears, Idle Tears

Tears, Idle Tears

Lord Alfred Tennyson

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

In looking on the happy autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,

That brings our friends up from the under-world,

Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns

The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;

So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,

And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned

On lips that are for others; deep as love,

Deep as first love, and wild with regret;

O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

((If you have any further questions, would like to make a suggestion for a future poem/topic of discussion, or would like an analysis of this poem to be done, please inform me by leaving a comment below. I will address any and all comments in the order they are received, as quickly as I can.))

Back Again

I'm back, once more, my lovely readers. I have this terrible habit of popping in and out, posting only a poem or two before I disappear again. I am trying to rectify this, but life inevitably finds a means to get in the way of the things that I would like to do. I've taken the liberty of typing up a few extra poems, so I should be able to update consistently for at least a few days, even if I am unable to find the time to type up a piece for you all.

I hope you enjoy today's post, a work by Keats entitled On the Grasshopper and the Cricket. It's a lovely, little sonnet that shows us quite a nice look at nature and the beautiful music inherent in it.