A sworded man whose trade is blood,
In grief, in anger, and in fear,
Thro’ jungle, swamp, and torrent flood,
I seek the wealth you hold so dear!
The dazzling charm of outward form,
The power of gold, the pride of birth,
Have taken Woman’s heart by storm–
Usurp’d the place of inward worth.
Is not true Love of higher price
Than outward Form, though fair to see,
Wealth’s glittering fairy-dome of ice,
Or echo of proud ancestry?–
O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see
Into the bottom of my heart,
There’s such a mine of Love for thee,
As almost might supply desert!
(This separation is, alas!
Too great a punishment to bear;
O! take my life, or let me pass
That life, that happy life, with her!)
The perils, erst with steadfast eye
Encounter’d, now I shrink to see–
Oh! I have heart enough to die–
Not half enough to part from Thee!
I am only putting this poem on my blog because of its final two lines, which I absolutely loved from the first time I read them as a child. Those lines are so entrancing with the breathless alliteration of ‘h’s, the delicate ‘f’s and of course the grandiose ‘Thee’ at the end. This is an expression of that beautiful, heroic love that consumes all and becomes all… and I just love it!
I’m not very keen on the rest of the poem, to be quite honest; I particularly dislike the line about almost supplying “desert”… it seems clumsy, as if Coleridge only put that word in to make it rhyme with “heart” (which it doesn’t, really.) But however cringing some of this poem is to me, I forgive it all when I get to the final two lines, and I hover over them to enjoy the linguistic beauty that is more akin to that of Coleridge’s most famous poem, Kubla Khan.
Separation is one of Coleridge’s ‘Asra poems’, which are all addressed to the love of his life, Sara (he affectionately called her Asra in all of his poems).
Marke but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny’st me is;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, out two bloods mingled bee;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sinne, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two
And this, alas, is more than wee would doe.
Oh, stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where wee almost, yea more then maryed are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and mariage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of Jet.
Though use make you apt to kill mee,
Let not to that, selfe murder added bee,
And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.
Cruell and sodaine, hast thou since
Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty bee,
Except in that drop which is suckd from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and saist that thou
Find’st not thy selfe, nor mee the weaker now;
‘Tis true, then learne how false, fears bee;
Just so much honor, when thou yeeld’st to mee,
Will wast, as this flea’s death tooke life from thee.
John Donne left an incredibly rich heritage. It concerns both the quantity of his works and their quality, and “The Flea” is an excellent example of it. Here, one can clearly see why the intricate structure of Donne’s poems is often compared to lace. Continue reading “The Flea” by John Donne→
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus is one of few authors, whose lines are carved in stone. Even not in a simple stone, but in the pedestal of the sculptural statue, which became the symbol of America. Continue reading “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus→
That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river’s level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.
All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept
For miles inland,
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
Canals with floatings of industrial froth;
A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped
And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth
Until the next town, new and nondescript,
Approached with acres of dismantled cars.
At first, I didn’t notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what’s happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,
As if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms:
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes,
The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that
Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.
Yes, from cafés
And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days
Were coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;
The last confetti and advice were thrown,
And, as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just what it saw departing: children frowned
At something dull; fathers had never known
Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem
Just long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
—An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And someone running up to bowl—and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:
There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Travelling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.
Philip Arthur Larkin is widely regarded as one of the most successful British writers of the generation of “Pentecostals“. Each word of his poems and prose works is a protest against romance and increased emotionality. Continue reading “The Whitsun Weddings” by Philip Larkin→
I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live.
The unique poem “The Lesson” from the American poetess Maya Angelou challenges mind even now, many years after its creation. Is this work autobiographical? Continue reading “The Lesson“ of Maya Angelou→
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
The poem “Phenomenal Woman” is a known poetic work of Maya Angelou, a poetess and a public person, one of the most successful African-American women in the middle of the ХХth century in America.
The author confirms self-critically enough: “I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size”, – and really – Maya Angelou or Margaret Ann Johnson, as she was called actually, was by no means a sample of physical excellence and attractiveness. Although her life experience was complex and she had to sell herself at different times (prostitution, dance shows), her appeal concealed not in the body, but in the spirit. The author says: “I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me”.
Objectively, phenomenal aspect of this author is in the fact that Maya Angelou actually feels like a woman in the deepest sense of this word. Forcing the path through thickets of public stereotypes into popularity, she was a black (which served in itself as the grounds for discrimination) woman (still in the socially undeveloped societies, a woman is regarded as a creature of the second or third grade) and additionally, she was originally from a poor family. Objectively, “Pretty women wonder where my secret lies… But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies”.
What is the special thing, which attracts these numerous men, who cannot resist magic (or insistence?) of this phenomenal woman? The author believes that “It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist is And the joy in my feet…”. And at the same time she confirms that even “Men themselves have wondered What they see in me”, but they cannot understand this to the full.
What is this poem about? About the fact that a woman is a phenomenon. The woman who is strong enough to remain forever one, even in the most unfavorable external conditions. An accomplished woman, a self- made woman, a self-confident woman – Maya Angelou, certainly, speaks about herself. But also about the stuff, which is important for her in every person. Yes, a woman is a miracle much more complex for cognition, than a man. At least just because she is able to undermine imagination of a man, be a source of life and the source of “My inner mystery”. Of the secret, on which those ones, who did not receive access, cannot touch.
However, there is one more important thing. It is the one, which is important both for women and men from the author`s point of view: “Just why my head’s not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud”. Not to bow, not to speak loudly, not to try to conquer attention by any external manifestations. But only by the world inside. “ ’Cause I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me”.
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The poem “I know why the caged bird sings” holds a special place in the creative work of the African-American poetess Maya Angelou. As a matter of fact, this is not just a poem, but a manifesto of a kind, which gave the name to the entire autobiographical book.
Born in the beginning of the ХХth century, Margaret Ann Johnson (this is her real name) made the long way from an oppressed and humiliated African-American kid to a person, who is able to speak on behalf of her compatriots, women, all oppressed ones. The poem “I know why the caged bird sings” represents an opposition of its kind of a free bird and a bird born in a cage, whose wings are cut off and feet are entangled.
“But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing”, – the words of this stanza are filled, on one hand, with oppositions, on the other, with realization of hopeless overconfidence of a free bird, and of hopelessness of the second encaged. In both cases, the result is the same – a bird (as a person) – cannot possess the sky (the world). And each of them is richer in something: the encaged one – in a dream and song, the free one– in flight, but not in a dream about the flight.
One can realize deep senses put by the author into these lines only having learned more of the life and dreams of the African-American poetess. Really, the woman, who came through sexual violence and indifference of the relatives, menial works and prostitution in the youth, on the way to her dream, knows exactly, “why the caged bird sings”. They sing about their dream, but only few of them get chance to realize this dream. And they will have to stain every sinew for reaching the sky.
The final stanza reveals the secret of the song – this is the song about freedom. “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom”. Is this dream really so unattainable? Bothe the poem and the author’s experience say yes and not. Yes, because it is challenging to achieve one`s freedom, but, if one sings about it, this is the first step from a cage. It is a stepping stone to comprehension free from inside. Not – because the society still holds prejudice against blacks, the poor and other vulnerable people. Both weak and strong perish without having ended a song, without having achieved freedom. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, her colleagues in struggle for civil rights were killed, having paid their price for the freedom of others. Or for a dream and sings of freedom?
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.