morning song

love set you going like a fat gold watch.
the midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
took its place among the elements.

voices echo, magnifying your arrival. new statue.
in the drafty museum, your nakedness
shadows our safety. we stand round blankly as walls.

i'm no more your mother
than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
effacement at the wind's hand.

all night your moth-breath flickers
among the flat pink roses. i wake to listen,
a far sea moves in my ear.

one cry, and i stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
in my victorian nightgown.
your mouth opens clean as a cat's. the window square

whitens and swallows its dull stars. and now you try
your handful of notes:
the clear vowels rise like balloons.

Hey, my first poem that doesn't rhyme. Not coincidentally, my first line break mistake (it should read "moth-breath/flickers") Like I said yesterday, I plan on memorizing Sylvia Plath's book Ariel in its entirety, probably a poem a week. We'll see what happens when I get to the longer poems; I might start stretching them over multiple days. But let's look at this one.

I frequently hear, especially in workshop settings, that similes are just weaker versions of metaphors. I hate this. I love similes, and I think this poem in particular shows what you can do with them that wouldn't work with metaphors. Just think how the poem would read if the similes here were replaced with equivalent metaphors: all over the place. Metaphors, I think, draw more attention to themselves, and get stronger when developed over multiple lines. Similes are more subtle, and are more easily slipped into a stanza without making the reader stop and think, "Wait, what are we talking about, now?"

whoso list to hunt

whoso list to hunt, i know where is an hind,
but as for me, alas, i may no more.
the vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
i am of them that farthest falleth behind.
yet i may by no means my wearied mind
draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore,
fainting i follow. i leave off therefore,
for in a net i seek to hold the wind.

who list her hunt, i put him out of doubt
as well as i may spend his time in vain.
for graven in diamond in letters plain
are written on her fair neck round about:
"noli me tangere, for caesar's i am,
and wild for to hold, though i seem tame."

I'm tired. Didn't have much time to memorize today. I wanted to do "they flee from me", which I like better, but didn't think I'd have the time. Maybe tomorrow (though I think I'm going to start memorizing the entirety of Ariel one poem a week).

i'm tired.

modern love (1)

by this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
that, at his hand's light quiver by her head
the strange low sobs that shook their common bed
were called into her, with a sharp surprise,
and strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
deadly venomous to him. she lay
stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
with muffled pulses. then, as midnight makes
her giant heart of memory and tears
drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
were moveless, looking through their dead black years
by vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
like sculptured effigies they might be seen
upon their marriage tomb, the sword between;
each wishing for the sword that severs all.

This (by George Meredith), is the first of these poems that has lost merit to me through the process of memorization. With both the Keats and Yeats, memorizing the poem made me pay attention to details that were rewarding. Here, I feel that the poem is less able to withstand the increased scrutiny.

First, things I like. The 16-line sonnet is a natural fit for the subject matter. Sonnets, traditionally, are about looking at things one way, and then changing perspectives and coming to a new conclusion. But here, we have two octaves instead of an octave and sestet, subtly reinforcing the pervasive feeling of despair: the situation is terrible and there is no new perspective from which to look at it that will make it seem better. I like the domestic mode here, too. This poem is intensely private, but it isn't about self-reflection; the reader instead is forced into a voyeuristic perspective, seeing the failing couple alone. This reads so entirely differently from any other Victorian poetry I've encountered. This is 1862, not 1962.

Now the bad. I had an especially difficult time memorizing this. I was able to remember the structure of the poem, image by image, but the individual words, phrases, and lines very frequently proved elusive. And I think that's because, really, Meredith uses quite a few throwaway words, particularly adjectives, in order to fill out his meter. "Pale drug" and "blank wall" seem especially weak and unmemorable. Sometimes it seems he stretches out an image for lines on end just to take up space: "then, as midnight makes/her giant heart of memory and tears/ drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat/ sleep's heavy measure" is the most offensive section. "Giant heart of memory and tears" would make more sense as just "heart," but that's not nearly enough syllables.

I still like this poem, but I can also see how it's not on the same level of sonnetude as "Leda and the Swan". Nowhere close.

leda and the swan (saturday, 9/19)

a sudden blow, the great wings beating still
above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
by the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill.
he holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

how can those terrified vague fingers push
the feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
and how can body, laid in that white rush,
but feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

a shudder in the loins engenders there
the broken wall, the burning roof and tower,
and agamemnon dead.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxbeing so caught up,
so mastered by the brute blood of the air,
did she put on his knowledge with his power
before the indifferent wings could let her drop?

All the enjambment at the start of this made it much more difficult to memorize than I'd expected. Though I do enjoy the whirlwind effect of the jumbled shots in the first four lines (reminds me of the shower scene in Psycho).

Lines 5 & 6 are my favorites. The way Yeats says "those...fingers" rather than "her...fingers", disassociating the Ledaean body from the self. Though I'm really not sure what makes fingers "vague".

This being a sonnet, the volta must occur in that mid-line break in line 11. And I find it rather unpowerful, really--it ends with a question ("did she put on his knowledge with his power") that seems like it is trying to subvert the horror of the represented rape. But that abstract sentiment is overwhelmed by the power of the images of the bird and woman; and the poem closes like it opens, with wings enveloping it.

la belle dame sans merci (friday, 9/18)

o what can ail thee, knight-at-arms
alone and palely loitering?
the sedge has withered from the lake
and no birds sing.

o what can ail thee, knight-at-arms
so haggard and so woebegone?
the squirrel's granary is full
and the harvest's done.

i see a lily on thy brow
with anguish moist and fever dew
and on thy cheeks a fading rose
fast withereth too.

i met a lady in the meads
full beautiful, a fairy's child.
her hair was long, her foot was light
and her eyes were wild.

i made a garland for her head
and bracelets too, and fragrant zone
she looked at me as she did love
and made sweet moan.

i set her on my pacing steed
and nothing else saw all day long
for sidelong would she bend and sing
a fairy's song.

she found me roots of relish sweet
and honey wild and manna dew
and sure in language strange she said
"i love thee true."

she took me to her elfin grot
and there she wept and sighed full sore
and there i shut her wild wild eyes
with kisses four.

and there she lulled me to sleep
and there i dreamed--ah, woe betide!
the latest dream i ever dreamed
on the cold hill's side.

i saw pale kings and princes too
pale warriors, death-pale were they all
they cried, "la belle dame sans merci
hath thee in thrall!"

i saw their starved lips in the gloam
with horrid warning gaped wide
and i awoke, and found me here
on the cold hill's side.

and this is why i sojourn here
alone and palely loitering
though the sedge has withered from the lake
and no birds sing.

I chose this for the day that Bright Star opened domestically. I'm 25, it seemed fitting. it's always been my favorite Keats, and now I've memorized it.

On that: in order to scan, "lulled" and "gaped" have to be pronounced with two syllables. Looking at the actual printings of this poem, I see that wherever the "-ed" suffix isn't meant to be its own syllable (except in "starved"), the "e" is replaced with an apostrophe (look'd, wither'd). This is from 1819; I guess I'd figured that by that time, English pronunciation had become regularized enough for that not to be an issue.

I amused myself with the image of this fairy lady finding a knight some sweet pickle relish, even though I know the word just means "flavor".

I really like the pacing of this poem, and how Keats heightens the tension of the climax (stanzas 9 & 10) by repeating words: "dreamed" in stanza 9 and "pale" in stanza 10. This has a similar effect to increasing the harmonic tempo in a piece of music (when chord changes move from, say, once a bar to four times a bar). It accelerates the rhythm of the syntax without changing the regular rhythm of the stanzas. He sets up the climax with repetition as well, beginning four lines with "And there", which I can't help but read with increased intensity. And, obviously, the poem begins and ends with near-identical stanzas.

I almost want to compare it to Schubert's 1815 setting of "Der Erlkoenig". I can't quite formulate an argument at the moment, but here's a link to a performance of it.