Exempli Gratia: Classic Poetry

[Pike Bishop]

The Afternoon of a Faun

***************

by Stephane Mallarme'

Translation from French by Roger Fry

Paintings by Rebecca A. Barrington

***************


These nymphs I would perpetuate.

So clear

Their light carnation, that it floats in the air

Heavy with tufted slumbers.


Was it a dream I loved?

My doubt, a heap of ancient night, is finishing

In many a subtle branch, which, left the true

Wood itself, proves, alas! that all alone I gave

Myself for triumph the ideal sin of roses.

Let me reflect


. . .if the girls of which you tell

Figure a wish of your fabulous senses!

Faun, the illusion escapes from the blue eyes

And cold, like a spring in tears, of the chaster one:

But, the other, all sighs, do you say she contrasts

Like a breeze of hot day in your fleece!

But no! through the still, weary faintness

Choking with heat the fresh morn if it strives,

No water murmurs but what my flute pours

On the chord sprinkled thicket; and the sole wind


Prompt to exhale from my two pipes, before

It scatters the sound in a waterless shower,

Is, on the horizon's unwrinkled space,

The visible serene artificial breath

Of inspiration, which regains the sky.


Oh you, Sicilian shores of a calm marsh

That more than the suns my vanity havocs,

Silent beneath the flowers of sparks, RELATE

"That here I was cutting the hollow reeds tamed

By talent, when on the dull gold of the distant

Verdures dedicating their vines to the springs,


There waves an animal whiteness at rest:

And that to the prelude where the pipes first stir .... {excerpt}

{ http://www.angelfire.com/art/doit/mallarme.html }

Mallarme is so good it's scary.

[North Star]

It would be fantastic if we could get some more people to participate in the thread. There's a wealth of older poetry that I feel doesn't get talked about enough (guys like Traherne, Herrick, Spenser, Herbert, etc) so it'd be cool if there were more and more samples - not that it has to be only from that sort of era, I actually quite like the free-wheeling nature of the thread and how it seemed to range from Ancient times to the 19th century.

Hear, hear!

Nice choice North Star. I like Herrick a lot, and I think I will go with one of his poems myself:

Delight in Disorder:

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.

A good choice, as well.


Katherine, Lady Dyer: [Epitaph on Sir William Dyer] (1621)

My dearest dust could not thy hasty day
Afford thy drowzy patience leave to stay
One hower longer; so that we might either

Sate up, or gone to bedd together?

But since thy finisht labor hath possest

Thy weary limbs with early rest,

Enjoy it sweetly; and thy widdowe bride
Shall soone repose her by thy slumbering side;
Whose business, now is only to prepare

My nightly dress, and call to prayre:

Mine eyes wax heavy and the day growes old

The dew falls thick, my bloud growes cold;

Draw, draw the closed curtaynes: and make room;
My deare, my dearest dust; I come, I come.

[Pierre Menard]

^^^ Nice!


I'm gonna jump forward a couple hundred years:

In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 5: Alfred Lord Tennyson

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

[North Star]

^Beautiful.

And I'll jump back again a half a century or so.

Oliver Goldsmith: from The Deserted Village (1770)

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There, as I past with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below;
The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread,
For all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
All but yon widowed, solitary thing
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.

[North Star]

JOHN KEATS: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific - and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise -

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

[Pierre Menard]

^^^ That makes me want to re-read Keats as soon as possible. Great poem.

I've been away for a few days, but I'm back with a poem from Thomas Traherne. A bit longer than the other ones I've posted so far, but I enjoy it a lot.


The Salutation by Thomas Traherne



These little limbs,
These eyes and hands which here I find,
These rosy cheeks wherewith my life begins,
Where have ye been? behind
What curtain were ye from me hid so long?
Where was, in what abyss, my speaking tongue?

When silent I
So many thousand, thousand years
Beneath the dust did in a chaos lie,
How could I smiles or tears,
Or lips or hands or eyes or ears perceive?
Welcome ye treasures which I now receive.

I that so long
Was nothing from eternity,
Did little think such joys as ear or tongue
To celebrate or see:
Such sounds to hear, such hands to feel, such feet,
Beneath the skies on such a ground to meet.

New burnished joys,
Which yellow gold and pearls excel!
Such sacred treasures are the limbs in boys,
In which a soul doth dwell;
Their organizèd joints and azure veins
More wealth include than all the world contains.

From dust I rise,
And out of nothing now awake;
These brighter regions which salute mine eyes,
A gift from God I take.
The earth, the seas, the light, the day, the skies,
The sun and stars are mine if those I prize.

Long time before
I in my mother’s womb was born,
A God, preparing, did this glorious store,
The world, for me adorn.
Into this Eden so divine and fair,
So wide and bright, I come His son and heir.

A stranger here
Strange things doth meet, strange glories see;
Strange treasures lodged in this fair world appear,
Strange all and new to me;
But that they mine should be, who nothing was,
That strangest is of all, yet brought to pass.

[North Star]

Hadn't read Traherne before, but that is great.

Another one from Traherne:

Eden

A learned and a happy ignorance
Divided me
From all the vanity,
From all the sloth, care, pain, and sorrow that advance
The madness and the misery
Of men. No error, no distraction I
Saw soil the earth, or overcloud the sky.

I knew not that there was a serpent’s sting,
Whose poison shed
On men, did overspread
The world; nor did I dream of such a thing
As sin, in which mankind lay dead.
They all were brisk and living wights to me,
Yea, pure and full of immortality.

Joy, pleasure, beauty, kindness, glory, love,
Sleep, day, life, light,
Peace, melody, my sight,
My ears and heart did fill and freely move.
All that I saw did me delight.
The Universe was then a world of treasure,
To me an universal world of pleasure.

Unwelcome penitence was then unknown,
Vain costly toys,
Swearing and roaring boys,
Shops, markets, taverns, coaches, were unshown;
So all things were that drown’d my joys:
No thorns chok’d up my path, nor hid the face
Of bliss and beauty, nor eclips’d the place.

Only what Adam in his first estate,
Did I behold;
Hard silver and dry gold
As yet lay under ground; my blessed fate
Was more acquainted with the old
And innocent delights which he did see
In his original simplicity.

Those things which first his Eden did adorn,
My infancy
Did crown. Simplicity
Was my protection when I first was born.
Mine eyes those treasures first did see
Which God first made. The first effects of love
My first enjoyments upon earth did prove;

And were so great, and so divine, so pure;
So fair and sweet,
So true; when I did meet
Them here at first, they did my soul allure,
And drew away my infant feet
Quite from the works of men; that I might see
The glorious wonders of the Deity.

[Pierre Menard]

That was going to be my other Traherne choice. A lovely poem! He's definitely an under appreciated Poet.



I'm not a religious man, but I do love religious imagery in art, and there were very few better than those great religious poets of the 17th century and 18th centuries when it came to passionate and vigorous imagery.


The Day of Judgement by Isaac Watts


When the fierce north wind with his airy forces
Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury,
And the red lightning with a storm of hail comes
Rushing amain down,

How the poor sailors stand amazed and tremble,
While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet,
Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters,
Quick to devour them!

Such shall the noise be and the wild disorder,
(If things eternal may be like these earthly)
Such the dire terror, when the great Archangel
Shakes the creation,

Tears the strong pillars of the vault of heaven,
Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes;
See the graves open, and the bones arising,
Flames all around ’em!

Hark, the shrill outcries of the guilty wretches!
Lively bright horror and amazing anguish
Stare through their eyelids, while the living worm lies
Gnawing within them.

Thoughts like old vultures prey upon their heart-strings,
And the smart twinges, when the eye beholds the
Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance
Rolling afore him.

Hopeless immortals! how they scream and shiver,
While devils push them to the pit wide-yawning
Hideous and gloomy, to receive them headlong
Down to the center.

Stop here, my fancy: (all away ye horrid
Doleful ideas); come, arise to Jesus;
How He sits God-like! and the saints around him
Throned, yet adoring!

Oh may I sit there when he comes triumphant
Dooming the nations! then ascend to glory
While our hosannas all along the passage
Shout the Redeemer.

[North Star]

That was going to be my other Traherne choice. A lovely poem! He's definitely an under appreciated Poet.

I'm not a religious man, but I do love religious imagery in art, and there were very few better than those great religious poets of the 17th century and 18th centuries when it came to passionate and vigorous imagery.

I am an areligious man as well, and also love much religious art. Splendid choice, that Watts piece, too.

Something seasonal:


Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517 – 19 January 1547 / Norfolk)

The soote season, that bud and bloom forth bringes,
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale:
The nightingale with fethers new she singes:
The turtle to her make hath told her tale:
Somer is come, for every spray nowe springes,
The hart hath hong his olde hed on the pale:
The buck in brake his winter cote he flinges:
The fishes flote with newe repaired scale:
The adder all her sloughe away she slinges:
The swift swallow pursueth the flyes smale:
The busy bee her honye now she minges:
Winter is worne that was the flowers bale:
And thus I see, among these pleasant things
Eche care decayes, and yet my sorow springes.

[Pierre Menard]

Howard is definitely a poet I have to check out more of. Another quality choice!


On a Drop of Dew - Andrew Marvell

See how the orient dew,
Shed from the bosom of the morn
Into the blowing roses,
Yet careless of its mansion new,
For the clear region where ’twas born
Round in itself incloses:
And in its little globe’s extent,
Frames as it can its native element.
How it the purple flow’r does slight,
Scarce touching where it lies,
But gazing back upon the skies,
Shines with a mournful light,
Like its own tear,
Because so long divided from the sphere.
Restless it rolls and unsecure,
Trembling lest it grow impure,
Till the warm sun pity its pain,
And to the skies exhale it back again.
So the soul, that drop, that ray
Of the clear fountain of eternal day,
Could it within the human flow’r be seen,
Remembering still its former height,
Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green,
And recollecting its own light,
Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express
The greater heaven in an heaven less.
In how coy a figure wound,
Every way it turns away:
So the world excluding round,
Yet receiving in the day,
Dark beneath, but bright above,
Here disdaining, there in love.
How loose and easy hence to go,
How girt and ready to ascend,
Moving but on a point below,
It all about does upwards bend.
Such did the manna’s sacred dew distill,
White and entire, though congealed and chill,
Congealed on earth : but does, dissolving, run
Into the glories of th’ almighty sun.

[North Star]

Howard is definitely a poet I have to check out more of. Another quality choice!


On a Drop of Dew - Andrew Marvell

I haven't read too much, or enough, Howard either yet. And a good one from you too.


[4] from Certain Sonnets - Sir Philip Sidney


The Nightingale as soone as Aprill bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
While late bare earth, proud of new clothing springeth,
Sings out her woes, a thorne her song-booke making:

And mournfully bewailing,
Her throate in tunes expresseth
What griefe her breast opresseth,
For Theseus force on her chaste will prevailing.

O Philomela faire, ô take some gladnesse,
That here is juster cause of plaintfull sadnesse:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth,
Thy thorne without, my thorne my thorne my heart invadeth.

Alas she hath no other cause of anguish
But Theseus love, on her by strong hand wrokne,
Wherein she suffring all her spirits languish,
Full womanlike complaines her will was brokne.

But I who dayly craving,
Cannot have to content me,
Have more cause to lament me,
Since wanting is more woe then too much having.

O Philomela faire, ô take some gladnesse,
That here is juster cause of plaintfull sadnesse:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth,
Thy thorne without, my thorne my thorne my heart invadeth.

[Pierre Menard]

Very fine choice. I might keep with the Sidney flavour:


Astrophil and Stella 30


With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call ‘virtue’ there—ungratefulness?



I really love those first two lines. Simple, but effective.


On a side note, it really bothers me that every time I go to post, it changes the structure of the poem. As in, it just immediately aligns the poem left, even when I type it out in it's proper pattern. For example, the last two lines should start just under about the 'o' of 'do'. There must be away to post the poem the way it actually looks without linnet changing it.

[North Star]

Very fine choice. I might keep with the Sidney flavour:

Astrophil and Stella 30


I really love those first two lines. Simple, but effective.


On a side note, it really bothers me that every time I go to post, it changes the structure of the poem. As in, it just immediately aligns the poem left, even when I type it out in it's proper pattern. For example, the last two lines should start just under about the 'o' of 'do'. There must be away to post the poem the way it actually looks without linnet changing it.

A beautiful choice indeed.

Yes, it irks me as well. Oh well, no need for any such devices in this one:


Katherine Philips: EPITAPH. On her Son H.P. at St. Syth's Church where her body also lies Interred

What on Earth deserves our trust?
Youth and Beauty both are dust.
Long we gathering are with pain,
What one moment calls again.
Seven years childless marriage past,
A Son, a son is born at last:
So exactly lim'd and fair,
Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air,
As a long life promised,
Yet, in less than six weeks dead.
Too promising, too great a mind
In so small room to be confin'd:
Therfore, as fit in Heav'n to dwell,
He quickly broke the Prison shell.
So the subtle Alchimist,
Can't with Hermes Seal resist
The powerful spirit's subtler fight,
But t'will bid him long good night.
And so the Sun if it arise
Half so glorious as his Eyes,
Like this Infant, takes a shrowd,
Buried in a morning Cloud.

[Pierre Menard]

And after a lengthy absence, I have returned, to once again attempt to resurrect this thread. I quite like this from Sir Walter Raleigh:



A Vision Upon the Fairy Queen


Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Within that temple where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way,
To see that buried dust of living fame,
Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept:
All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen;
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept,
And, from thenceforth, those Graces were not seen:
For they this queen attended; in whose stead
Oblivion laid him down on Laura’s hearse:
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,
And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce:
Where Homer’s spright did tremble all for grief,
And cursed the access of that celestial thief!

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Ben Jonson
My Picture Left in Scotland

"I now think love is rather deaf, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind:
I'm sure my language was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence of as subtle feet
As hath the youngest he,
That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.

Oh, but my conscious fears,
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundreds of gray hairs,
Told seven and forty years,
Read so much waist, as she cannot embrace
My mountain belly and my rock face,
As all these, through her eyes, have stopt her ears."