I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
Monthly Archives: February 2013
‘Kubla Khan’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail :
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
When I was 18 I wrote half a very bad and naive novel in which the hero died, and this hero’s epitaph consisted of the last two lines of this poem. I mention this embarrassing anecdote simply because the fact that I chose these lines to sum up my hero’s life demonstrates what in incredible impact this poem had on me at that time. When I first read Kubla Khan I couldn’t believe its beauty and had to read it again and again. And another thing that happened, and that happens with all my favourite poems, is this: I felt the need to read it aloud. I feel like that is the sign of a poem that I will keep: one that I want to read aloud.
I think that perhaps it is the pure music of this poem that has made it so famous and enduring. And then there is also the story. The story is one with which Coleridge prefaced his poem, asserting that he wrote Kubla Khan upon waking from an opium-induced sleep. He supposedly had a dream about Kubla Khan and when he woke up this beautiful verse simply poured out of him, without strain or effort (I know, I don’t believe him either.) Then poor Coleridge was interrupted by a visitor at the door, and this broke his flow of poetry. So, he could not finish the poem. This is why, in his poetry collection, Kubla Khan is categorised as a Fragment. I think the “damsel with a dulcimer” part and beyond is the post-interruption part of the poem. Up until this point you have this incredibly rich description of the fictional land of Xanadu with its “sacred river”, its “caverns measureless to man” and the “forests ancient as the hills”. Then the latter part of the poem seems to be the poet grasping frantically in the dark for the “vision once [he] saw”, which he cannot recover.
If only the poet could “revive within [himself]” the “symphony and song” of his vision, he could write the most glorious, heavenly poetry, in fact, he would “build that dome in air,/ That sunny dome! those caves of ice!” This unattainability of a vision which has come from some source uncontrolled by the poet (i.e. the Muse?) is a very Romantic notion.
But it is the last part of the poem that I love the most — the part where Coleridge tells us what he would do if he could only recreate the magnificence of his vision. When he says, “And all who heard should see them there” it makes me think that Coleridge longs to recreate what he has seen so faithfully that readers would physically “see” the vision for themselves. Then there is that couplet I love so much:
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
I just adore the drama of these words, the delicious rhyme setting you up for the crashing finale:
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
This weaving a circle round him thrice brings to mind the idea of ritual for me, and that “holy dread” reinforces it. There is certainly something holy or sacred about this poem — about all great poems. The poet who can recreate his visions is one to be revered, one to ritualise (haven’t we made some sort of ritual or religion of our greatest authors? Shakespeare? Criticising Shakespeare is like blasphemy, even to people who have never heard one of his poems or plays.) The final two lines — my poor hero’s epitaph — express, in my opinion, the awe we can feel before the works of great artists, poets and musicians. Heaven is occasionally attained in art — by those blessed artists who have “drunk the milk of Paradise” — and when it is, it leaves us in a slightly dazed state, not quite sure where we are anymore. As a final thought I will say that that I think the last lines of this poem are akin in tone to those of Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale: “fled is that music: – do I wake or sleep?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfrx_JQcIsI
Reviewed by Emily Ardagh
‘My heart is heavy’ by Sara Teasdale
My heart is heavy with many a song
Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree,
But I can never give you one –
My songs do not belong to me.Yet in the evening, in the dusk
When moths go to and fro,
In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen,
Take it, no one will know.
I find Sara Teasdale’s poems to be incredibly touching. This one in particular moves me with its sad, wistful tone and sense of secrecy.
The way the poet describes her heart as being heavy with “song” is starkly unusual. Normally, I think of song as a joyful thing, or at least a thing that gives release to creativity; I don’t think of song as something that would make the heart heavy. These songs are “ripe fruit”, full of goodness and potential for pleasure, but the poet’s heart is heavy because she cannot “give you one”. Her songs or poems have become a weight on her heart because they “do not belong to [her]”. She cannot give her song, her poem, her heart, to the person she wants.
It seems likely that this poem was written for Vachel Lindsay, who courted Teasdale when they were young and wrote her many love letters, yet who did not have enough money to marry her. Sara Teasdale married a wealthy business man called Filsinger instead, but the marriage was very unhappy and ended in divorce. Teasdale never dropped her friendship with Vachel Lindsay, though he also married and had children with another woman, and they both committed suicide within two years of each other.
When I read this poem I feel like it is full of regret and full secret love for Vachel Lindsay. The way she says “My songs do not belong to me” evokes the idea that her heart, her body, even her soul no longer belong to her, but to her husband. She cannot write a poem for Lindsay, or a love letter, or see him because she is married. Yet I love the way she asks her loved one to take the fallen fruit — to take her song — in the evening when “no one will know.” It is irresistibly secretive and sad.
Reviewed by Emily Ardagh
‘Luck’ by Langston Hughes
Sometimes, a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Sometimes a bone
Is flung.To some people
Love is given.
To others
Only heaven.
I love the plain eloquence of this poem. And I randomly translated it into French on Valentine’s Day this year. Here is my translation:
Parfois, une miette tombe
Des tables de la joie,
Parfois, un os
est jeté.
Certaines personnes
Sont bénies par l’amour,
Et d’autres,
Que par le paradis.
Reviewed by Emily Ardagh
‘Romeo Kiffe Juliette’ by Grand Corps Malade
Roméo habite au rez-de-chaussée du bâtiment trois
Juliette dans l’immeuble d’en face au dernier étage
Ils ont 16 ans tous les deux et chaque jour quand ils se voient
Grandit dans leur regard une envie de partage
C’est au premier rendez-vous qu’ils franchissent le pas
Sous un triste ciel d’automne où il pleut sur leurs corps
Ils s’embrassent comme des fous sans peur du vent et du froid
Car l’amour a ses saisons que la raison ignore[Refrain]
Romeo kiffe Juliette et Juliette kiffe Roméo
Et si le ciel n’est pas clément tant pis pour la météo
Un amour dans l’orage, celui des dieux, celui des hommes
Un amour, du courage et deux enfants hors des normes
Continue reading ‘Romeo Kiffe Juliette’ by Grand Corps Malade
‘May’ by Christina Rossetti
I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray.
I love this poem for its gentleness, and because of the way it is mysterious; at the end the reader is still wondering what happened. The poet will not tell us anything about the event, or even what it was. All we are told is that it happened “When May was young”, when the “last egg had not hatched”, and before “any bird [had] foregone its mate”. The mentioning of the birds’ mates, and of all those images of fertility, such as the eggs not yet hatched, the flowers — the poppies not yet “born” — makes me feel like what happened was a love affair.
The poem enforces the notion of the fleetingness of everything: of the seasons, of life, of nature, of “all sweet things”. And that final line is so sad and poignant. Everything passes away; this event “came to pass” and “did but pass” and finally “passed away”. There is some revelling in the happiness of the event (“ah, pleasant May!”) but not too much, and once it has passed away, there is mourning, but, again, not too much (she is left “old, and cold, and gray.”) I like that, because there seems to be some measure of acceptance there.
Reviewed by Emily Ardagh
‘Ma Boheme’ by Arthur Rimbaud
Je m’en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées ;
Mon paletot aussi devenait idéal ;
J’allais sous le ciel, Muse ! et j’étais ton féal ;
Oh ! là là ! que d’amours splendides j’ai rêvées !Mon unique culotte avait un large trou.
– Petit-Poucet rêveur, j’égrenais dans ma course
Des rimes. Mon auberge était à la Grande Ourse.
– Mes étoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frouEt je les écoutais, assis au bord des routes,
Ces bons soirs de septembre où je sentais des gouttes
De rosée à mon front, comme un vin de vigueur ;Où, rimant au milieu des ombres fantastiques,
Comme des lyres, je tirais les élastiques
De mes souliers blessés, un pied près de mon coeur !I went off, my fists in my torn pockets,
Even my coat was becoming ideal:
I went beneath the sky, Muse! I was yours;
Oh! What splendid loves I dreamed of!My only trousers had a large hole in them.
– Tom Thumb the dreamer, sowing the roads
With rhymes. My shelter was under the Great Bear.
My stars in the sky were rustling softly.And I listened to them, sitting on the wayside,
Those good September nights, when I felt the drops
Of dew on my forehead like a fierce wine.Where, rhyming amidst fantastical shadows,
Like lyre-strings, I plucked the elastics
Of my wounded shoes, a foot close to my heart.
I have tried to do a translation of one of my favourite Rimbaud poems. It was the first Rimbaud poem I ever read and was in the first book of French poetry I ever bought. It’s a tricky thing, translating poetry, but I enjoy doing it. I think doing this translation helped me to understand the original text a bit more, maybe.
Anyway, as you can probably tell from the title, Ma Boheme, this poem is about a bohemian lifestyle. It is a fantasy of bohemian life, and very much romanticised. Some big Romantic ideals are in this poem: the virtues of the natural world, the innocence of a life unfettered by artificiality, the Muse, the poet as the servant of the Muse…
I love the opening, as the poet starts by saying “je m’en allais” — “I went off”. I’m not sure if I was right in my translation here. Because the French is in the imperfect tense, and so it’s more of a continuous action in the past… perhaps I should have written “I was wandering off”, but that made the first line too long. Anyway. There is no object to the speaker’s wanderings here; he is simply walking, with no fixed destination. I remember reading that first line over and over to myself when I first encountered the poem; I loved the familiarity of the language, and was amazed and thrilled at how accessible it was. His pockets are “crevées”, which means “torn” or “exhausted”. But Rimbaud also describes his tattered coat as “ideal”. It is ideal because it means his purity is not being tainted by vanity or money.
He is walking beneath the sky, subject to the whims of his Muse. This is a very Romantic idea: that poets are almost vessels, blessed with inspiration from the Muse when it should please her to bless them. I like this idea sometimes — it kind of takes the pressure off the poet — but then I sometimes don’t like it, because it also means that when one does write something good, it’s really down to the Muse rather than your own hard work… But whatever.
In the second stanza, the material poverty of the poet is evident again, because of the large hole in his only pair of trousers. I love the image of his auberge being a constellation of stars. They are his stars, he says, and they have voices. Obviously his stars are symbolic of his destiny. The speaker listens to his stars as his sits of the roadside. This all gives me a feeling of the poet being in touch with nature, with God(s), and with what his destiny might be. Nature seemingly provides him with everything he needs: the Great Bear constellation gives him shelter, he sows his rhymes along the roadside, as though his poetry could feed him, and he also talks about the dew on his forehead being like “wine”. He has no money, no possessions, but nature provides for him.
The poem ends with the image of the poet plucking the elastics of his old shoes as thought they were “lyre strings”. I love this image because it’s like the poet can create music (or poetry) without wealth or status or connections or anything else you might think you would need… He’s a pure poet, “sowing the roads/ With rhymes”, just for the pleasure of it.
Reviewed by Emily Ardagh
‘I died for beauty, but was scarce’ by Emily Dickinson
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.He questioned softly why I failed?
“For beauty,” I replied.
“And I for truth, -the two are one;
We brethren are,” he said.And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
I initially chose this poem because it reminds me of Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn (you know, “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty – That is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”?) Keats’ Ode is the best answer I could give to the question ‘why do I love poetry?’ It never fails to hypnotise and nourish me with its enchanting, awesome music… so maybe I should be writing a blog about that instead. But I don’t really feel like it; I want to write about Emily Dickinson.
Well, this poem is pretty gloomy, being about two martyrs in their tombs talking to each other until everything that remains of them has been overgrown by moss and forgotten. One died “for Beauty”, the other “for Truth”. I imagine the dead in this poem to be revolutionaries; they died for their ideals. The two ideals are “one”, and that makes the dead men “brethren”. One of the martyrs asks the other “why [he] failed”. The word failed seems important. Apart from meaning that the person died, it also implies that he failed to achieve his ideal. Is that another reason why Beauty and Truth are equal — because, in their perfect forms, they are equally impossible?
The image of the two dead men talking between their graves is a disturbing one, but in a way it is comforting too because it makes for a slow adjustment to death. The moss slowly creeps over them and their graves to silence them — covering up even the memory of them by obscuring their names. It’s a bleak outlook; death erases everything of a person, eventually. But there is no fear, no horror in this poem. I do think there is comfort here, too; there is a real sense of brotherhood between the two martyrs, and the way that they talk softly to each other and face the encroaching blackness together is a hopeful image. The men don’t express any fear in the poem — only that they are in good company — and I like that attitude, seeing as the situation they’re in is inevitable.
Not the most cheerful of poems, I know, but I really like it.
Reviewed by Emily Ardagh