(1770–1850)
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again;
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led—more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence—wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service; rather say
With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772–1834)
Kubla Khan
Or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment
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.
Kubla Khan
Or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment
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.
Deena Linett
Jury Duty
i.
Your number’s up. Cliff edge
is a window-ledge, twelfth floor
New Courts Building, Essex
County. Below, the snow’s
been four feet deep for weeks.
Cops patrol and we’re locked in
as if by serving time
we would develop empathy.
Clouds sweet as cream drift
across the skies where they are free.
Twelve-eighteen’s my new I.D.,
hotel room, flight number, war lottery.
ii.
After the change of government
begin with the maps, newly revised.
Ignore the stars. They will not
be there when you need them.
You’re in altered relation
to the spray of light on dark. Now
you see the galaxy edge-on, spinning
all the way toward the beginning.
Your compass says south is a range
of mountains with a glacier whose flow’s
shape is music you know
but can’t sing; you are west
of fields of purple flowers and east
of a salt sea. Where are you? Why
have they left you here? What is your task?
What will you devote yourself to?
© Deena Linett
i.
Your number’s up. Cliff edge
is a window-ledge, twelfth floor
New Courts Building, Essex
County. Below, the snow’s
been four feet deep for weeks.
Cops patrol and we’re locked in
as if by serving time
we would develop empathy.
Clouds sweet as cream drift
across the skies where they are free.
Twelve-eighteen’s my new I.D.,
hotel room, flight number, war lottery.
ii.
After the change of government
begin with the maps, newly revised.
Ignore the stars. They will not
be there when you need them.
You’re in altered relation
to the spray of light on dark. Now
you see the galaxy edge-on, spinning
all the way toward the beginning.
Your compass says south is a range
of mountains with a glacier whose flow’s
shape is music you know
but can’t sing; you are west
of fields of purple flowers and east
of a salt sea. Where are you? Why
have they left you here? What is your task?
What will you devote yourself to?
© Deena Linett
Kenneth Carroll
(1959– )
in the morning
for mary
it was my first poetry reading
i, a reluctant 7 year old attendee
standing in my jockeys as my sister,
her mouth twisting violently
around Dunbar’s dialectic verse,
screeched "lias, lias, bless de lawd"
at eight, my sister lacked subtlety
screaming lines without attention to timbre or tone,
commas & hyphens caused her no pause
she was, as instructed, projecting,
loud enough for her voice to bounce
off the rear of draper elementary’s auditorium
& to wake the deceased & resting Dunbar
a shrill fisherwoman’s delivery for a future audience
shut up, I muttered, through sleepy eyes
as my sister switched to Langston’s poem,
"life for me ain’t been no crystal stair"
her head rocking with emphasis & joy at my annoyance
i heard these two poems ricochet off the walls of our home
no less than five thousand times in a truncated february
my friends came to my home often,
looking for this kid named lias, who caused my sister
to scream with madness every waking hour
& searching in vain for the crystals in our stairs
by the time my sister had her official reading
our entire family was reciting both poems
like brainwashed idiots
thirty years later, it is me
annoying my family with verse and stanza
casting my life by the poems coursing my veins
while my sister’s life has become the jagged minstrel
that identify Dunbar’s lyrics
her song marked by the erratic meter
of an addict’s rhyme as she fills her lungs
with the shattered remains of a descending crystal stair
now i recite poems that beg her to live,
that implore her to be as tenacious in her search
for rhythm & meaning as the little girl
who lit up our home with sweet black words
who Langston warned and Dunbar amused
in the morning,
i pray for the blessing of any lord
for some lyrical benediction
to heal her cacophonous wounds
& make whole again the little girl,
who clings to sonnets & sobriety.
© 1996, Kenneth Carroll
in the morning
for mary
it was my first poetry reading
i, a reluctant 7 year old attendee
standing in my jockeys as my sister,
her mouth twisting violently
around Dunbar’s dialectic verse,
screeched "lias, lias, bless de lawd"
at eight, my sister lacked subtlety
screaming lines without attention to timbre or tone,
commas & hyphens caused her no pause
she was, as instructed, projecting,
loud enough for her voice to bounce
off the rear of draper elementary’s auditorium
& to wake the deceased & resting Dunbar
a shrill fisherwoman’s delivery for a future audience
shut up, I muttered, through sleepy eyes
as my sister switched to Langston’s poem,
"life for me ain’t been no crystal stair"
her head rocking with emphasis & joy at my annoyance
i heard these two poems ricochet off the walls of our home
no less than five thousand times in a truncated february
my friends came to my home often,
looking for this kid named lias, who caused my sister
to scream with madness every waking hour
& searching in vain for the crystals in our stairs
by the time my sister had her official reading
our entire family was reciting both poems
like brainwashed idiots
thirty years later, it is me
annoying my family with verse and stanza
casting my life by the poems coursing my veins
while my sister’s life has become the jagged minstrel
that identify Dunbar’s lyrics
her song marked by the erratic meter
of an addict’s rhyme as she fills her lungs
with the shattered remains of a descending crystal stair
now i recite poems that beg her to live,
that implore her to be as tenacious in her search
for rhythm & meaning as the little girl
who lit up our home with sweet black words
who Langston warned and Dunbar amused
in the morning,
i pray for the blessing of any lord
for some lyrical benediction
to heal her cacophonous wounds
& make whole again the little girl,
who clings to sonnets & sobriety.
© 1996, Kenneth Carroll
Christina Rossetti
(1830–1894)
In an Artist's Studio
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel—every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
No as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
In an Artist's Studio
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel—every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
No as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
W. S. Gilbert
(1836–1911)
If You're Anxious for to Shine in the High Aesthetic Line
Am I alone
And unobserved? I am!
Then let me own
I'm an aesthetic sham!
This air severe
Is but a mere
Veneer!
This cynic smile
Is but a wile
Of guile!
This costume chaste
Is but good taste
Misplaced!
Let me confess!
A languid love for lilies does not blight me!
Lank limbs and haggard cheeks do not delight me!
I do not care for dirty greens
By any means.
I do not long for all one sees
That's Japanese.
I am not fond of uttering platitudes
In stained-glass attitudes.
In short, my medievalism's affectation,
Born of a morbid love of admiration!
If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them
everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated
state of mind.
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!"
Be eloquent in praise of the very dull old days which have long since passed
away,
And convince 'em, if you can, that the reign of good Queen Anne was Culture's
palmiest day.
Of course you will pooh-pooh whatever's fresh and new, and declare it's crude
and mean,
For Art stopped short in the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If that's not good enough for him which is good enough for me,
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth this kind of youth must be!"
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid
spleen,
An attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French
bean!
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high
aesthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medieval hand.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your flowery way,
"If he's content with a vegetable love which would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man this pure young man must be!"
If You're Anxious for to Shine in the High Aesthetic Line
Am I alone
And unobserved? I am!
Then let me own
I'm an aesthetic sham!
This air severe
Is but a mere
Veneer!
This cynic smile
Is but a wile
Of guile!
This costume chaste
Is but good taste
Misplaced!
Let me confess!
A languid love for lilies does not blight me!
Lank limbs and haggard cheeks do not delight me!
I do not care for dirty greens
By any means.
I do not long for all one sees
That's Japanese.
I am not fond of uttering platitudes
In stained-glass attitudes.
In short, my medievalism's affectation,
Born of a morbid love of admiration!
If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them
everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated
state of mind.
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!"
Be eloquent in praise of the very dull old days which have long since passed
away,
And convince 'em, if you can, that the reign of good Queen Anne was Culture's
palmiest day.
Of course you will pooh-pooh whatever's fresh and new, and declare it's crude
and mean,
For Art stopped short in the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If that's not good enough for him which is good enough for me,
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth this kind of youth must be!"
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid
spleen,
An attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French
bean!
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high
aesthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medieval hand.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your flowery way,
"If he's content with a vegetable love which would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man this pure young man must be!"
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1807–1892)
Ichabod!
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!
Revile him not—the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!
Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.
Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven!
Let not the land, once proud of him,
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.
But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.
Of all we loved and honored, nought
Save power remains—
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!
Then, pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!
Ichabod!
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!
Revile him not—the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!
Oh! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.
Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven!
Let not the land, once proud of him,
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.
But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.
Of all we loved and honored, nought
Save power remains—
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!
Then, pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!
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