Ten Famous Poets of the Romanticism Movement: Keats, Hugo, Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Pushkin, Coleridge, Burns, Shelley, Poe
This is the second year of celebrating the onset of the monsoon with a session on the English Romantic Poets. Ten of us participated, including Pamela who was vacationing with her daughter in USA; she did it via a recording of her selection uploaded to the KRG Dropbox. We commend her enthusiasm and hold it up as an example for those who know beforehand that a scheduling conflict will prevent them from attending in person. Recording is then a good alternative.
Thommo, Priya
The Romantic poets in England began a movement in the arts that paralleled the changes taking place in society. “They were inspired by a desire for liberty, and denounced the exploitation of the poor. There was an emphasis on the importance of the individual; a conviction that people should follow their own ideals rather than conventions and rules imposed from above. The Romantics renounced the rationalism and order associated with the preceding Enlightenment era, stressing the importance of expressing authentic personal feelings. They had a real sense of responsibility to their fellow men: they felt it was their duty to use their poetry to inform and inspire others, and to change society.” This is taken from an excellent article by Stephanie Forward on the key ideas and influences of Romanticism. The article has important documents, manuscripts and illustrations and forms an appropriate introduction to this session at KRG.
Devika
There you will find the passage in the Lyrical Ballads setting out the definition of poetry by William Wordsworth: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, similar to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually</a>produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.”
Priya
Two of Keats’ six Odes were chosen for the occasion – Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode on Indolence. Psyche and Melancholy are the only ones left to be recited at KRG. Others among the Big Six Romantic Poets featured were Blake, Coleridge and Byron.
KumKum
Devika boldly chose Robert Burns, who is regarded as the National Poet of Scotland, adducing notes to make the Scots dialect plain to those unfamiliar with it. It was her first recital for us at KRG and was much appreciated.
Geetha
The circulation of the text of the poems among readers through a single merged PDF file has found favour for its convenience. It will be used in future, in the expectation that all the selections will be provided in advance by the readers as text in e-mail or by a Web link to it. And of course, they must download the merged PDF file ahead of time to the smartphones, tablets, or computers which they bring to the session for reading online.
Victuals are vital
Reflections on poetry were combined with refections afterwards: cucumber sandwiches by KumKum, Eid sheer khurma by Zakia, and etheka halwa by Joe. A wonderful way to end an evening with the Romantic Poets!
The repast after the event - cucumber sandwiches, etheka halwa, & Eid sheer khurma
Here we are beaming with joy at the end of the event:
Preeti, Geetha, Devika, Shoba, KumKum, Thommo, Priya, Zakia, Joe, Hemjit (seated)
Full Account and Record of the Poetry Session on English Romantic Poets
Jun 19, 2018
Present: Devika, Geetha, Hemjit, Joe, KumKum, Priya, Shoba, Thommo, Zakia
Virtually Present: Pamela
Absent: Kavita, Saras, Sunil
We decided to meet on the July 13 to read Mill on the Floss. It is a long book and the language is a little dated (the sentences are long) so the readers may need to attack it with perseverance. To ease the way there is full length TV film from 1997 on Youtube (1h56m). There’s another 8-part series each of about 25 minutes from 1978, spoken in English, with subtitles in Dutch. There is also a simplified edition retold by Florence Bell with excellent enunciation and accompanied by illustrations; you can hear the whole story in just 1h5m.
There is also an abridged edition of the book about half the length of the original:
Of course, the original is available free on Gutenberg at:
It was proposed and accepted that the poems at the August poetry session should feature women poets only. KumKum whose enthusiasm for a renewed session of Romantic Poets gave rise to the June 19 session for the second year in a row, thanked everybody for participating with relish.
1. Pamela
Introducing the poet, she said Henry David Thoreau belongs to the American literary movement known as Transcendentalism. It gives primacy to the power of intuition by which we suddenly know things we did not know before, without quite knowing how we arrived at the knowledge. This intuitive knowledge is linked to God.
Henry David Thoreau
Transcendentalism is deeply concerned with how to conduct one's life and what should be one's attitude to nature. Thoreau combined his nature writing with how to interpret nature. Two of his works, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) and Civil Disobedience (1849), became classics of American thinking and the latter work influenced Mahatma Gandhi.
He studied at the Concord Academy high school for entry to Harvard University in 1833. When he left Harvard in 1837 he began keeping a journal that became the source of much of his published work later on. From 1838 to 1841 he and his brother taught at their own school using new methods. In that time he began a close connection with Ralph Waldo Emerson. He began publishing in a magazine called The Dial. In several essays he developed his themes of nature walking and literary descriptions. An important idea of Transcendentalism was that God manifests himself in nature and is immanent in it.
Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond cabin - a replica
In 1845 Thoreau started living in a wood cabin near Walden Pond and bought the land around it for conservation. Here he wrote journals and made notes that later went into the classic, Walden Pond. He resisted slavery as a matter of conscience, praising John Brown of West Virginia. He himself did not retreat from public life but fully participated in it.
As he developed, Thoreau veered to scientific note-taking and record-keeping. He had read Darwin's Origin of Species and exploited it in his published studies of how forests grew in the Northeast by seed dispersal. Toward the end of his life he began to earn his keep by working as a surveyor. He was afflicted with TB; travel was recommended but it did him no good. Even as he was on his last legs he prepared essays for The Atlantic Monthly many of which were published after he died.
Thoreau’s famous quote is “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.” Therefore he focused on emphasising the newness of each day and the search for lived wisdom in our lives, no matter what our occupation, so we may transcend the material and achieve a life of principle. He died in 1862 leaving a legacy of environmentalism, of simple living, of respect for nature, and a need to protest wrongs with Civil Disobedience. All these issues have only taken added importance two hundred years after his birth.
[This account of his life is based on the Poetry Foundation's site: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/henry-david-thoreau]
Pamela read the poem Inspiration and called out the eighth stanza for having something deep and profound:
I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
Regarding the last two lines,
Fame cannot tempt the bard Who’s famous with his God,
Nor laurel him reward Who has his Maker’s nod.
she said they should impel us to ask the question: after everything in life, at the end, do we have the ‘Maker’s nod’?
2. Devika
Robert Burns
Devika said she was not really into poetry before joining KRG. She found many of the poems of the Romantics tinged with sadness but the poem she chose by Robert Burns was a really happy one. It was the first time she was reciting poetry at our sessions.
Joe said Burns is the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated there with a Burns supper, at or near his birthday on Jan 25, known as Robert Burns Day. Joe and KumKum have visited the Burns Museum at Alloway, the village where he lived and his birthplace, about 20 miles from Glasgow. There are artefacts, books and manuscripts on display, the cottage he lived in, and nearby is the diminutive old church that figures in his famous poem Tam O'Shanter. He is best known as the writer of Auld Lang Syne, an anthem sung around the world at New Year. The earliest poem of Burns Joe memorised was the short lyrical poem My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose, which you can hear sung at the link by Josienne Clarke.
Robert Burns often-anthologised poem
Devika’s poem begins with an old soldier returning from war and trying to find shelter in his native place. There's a young woman who lost her soldier husband; they meet, exchange words, and she takes him in with welcoming words to her farm:
Quo' she, "My grandsire left me gowd,
A mailen plenish'd fairly;
And come, my faithfu' sodger lad,
Thou'rt welcome to it dearly!"
There are unfamiliar Scots words like mailen (= farm) and plenish (= to provide with supplies). Devika had a version of the poem with annotations to make the meanings clear, e.g. ‘een’ means eyes. It would be nice to have a version with all such words explained. Here is a Scots Dictionary.
Here is the annotated version of The Soldier's Return used by Devika. Burns’ complete poetical works may be found at
The annotations below are taken from Understanding Robert Burns: Verse, Explanation and Glossary in which 130 of his poems are explained. See p. 281 of this linked reference:
monie = many; sodger = soldier
leal = true
trysting thorn = meeting place; een = eyes
fain wad be = would like to be
ance = once; cot = cottage; bamely fare = simple food; cockade = rosette worn as a cap badge
syne = then
gear = wealth; grandsire = grandfather; mailen = farm; plenis’d fairly = well stocked
Robert Burns was born of farm people in 1759 in village Alloway, near the town of Ayr. While he did farm labour growing up he was also exposed to basic education, and being a voracious reader he picked up a lot along with the songs of his mother, and the stories she told him. Poetry sprang naturally in his heart and some of his first attempts were love poems to farm girls. He composed in his mind while at work.
At his father’s death in 1784 of hard work he became the provider. At the same time his poetic creativity flourished and his well-known poem To a Mouse, belongs to this early time. He began to write satirical poetry and hoped to follow Robert Fergusson, an earlier poet. He published a collection titled Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect in July 1786 in a limited edition of 612 copies. Meanwhile he fell in love and made a girl pregnant, filling her father with consternation and her with child. His book was a great success and was reviewed so favourably that he became the toast of Edinburgh when he went there to flock with the literati. He brought out a new edition and sold his copyright to the book for 100 guineas. He made out with married women too, lusty lad that he was.
He toured the country and collected the songs of old times and brought out two collections the Scots Musical Museum and A Select Collection of Scotish Airs. He became an excise officer to earn his keep, marrying the girl he made pregnant and having several children by her (Jean Armour). He suffered from heart trouble and died in 1796 at the age of thirty-seven.
His poems have made him famous and as a poet he is loved by people of all ages and countries. No subject was too small for him to write about and animals were his natural subjects. His skill at rhyming has been remarked by all - the poems read smoothly. Many have been set to music, such as the very famous Red, Red Rose. You can enjoy half an hour of songs by Ewan MacColl singing Burns’ poems.
Besides, composers like Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Ravel and others have composed music based on his poems and songs. See the BBC Music Magazine’s celebration for Burns Night. Here, for example, is the music of Beethoven for The Lovely Lass of Inverness, one among the composer’s Twenty‐Five Scottish Songs collection.
[This life of Burns is based on the Scottish Poetry Library’s Biography]
3. Geetha
Edgar Allan Poe is known as a poet and writer of short stories. The stories were dark and macabre and so were several of his poems, but not the much-loved, often-recited Annabel Lee. Geetha’s son knew about The Raven and commended it to his mom. Poe was the one who noticed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s gifts and promoted him.
Edgar Allan Poe 1809–1849
Orphaned at age three, he was adopted by John Allan and attended good schools and then went on to the University of Virginia in 1825. He did well in studies, but was forced drop out for lack financial support. He joined the Army and published his first collection of poems in 1829. He got discharged (honourably) and tried to get into West Point, the prestigious military academy, but once agin lacking finances he could not continue. He published his third collection, Poems, in 1831.
Later, he won prizes for his short stories published in newspaper supplements. He got an editor’s job in Richmond, VA. He edited in succession several journals and married his under-age cousin, Virginia. He gained a reputation in literary circles and wrote first-rate criticism as well as poems and imaginative stories, sometimes macabre. We did a session of Edgar Allan Poe Short Stories in Nov 2015 at KRG. Remember Murders in the Rue Morgue?
Poe’s wife died of TB in 1847, after which he felt free to have affairs, but going to Baltimore unannounced in 1849 he was found unconscious lying in a gutter outside a pub and died a few days later in a delirium. He was first buried in an unmarked grave, and then moved outside a church in Baltimore.
Flowers rest on Edgar Allan Poe's burial site at Westminster Hall in Baltimore
A mystery: for many years a bunch of roses and a half empty bottle would be laid beside his grave on Jan 19, his birthday. A masked figure, dressed in black with a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf, would pour himself a glass of cognac and raise a toast to Poe's memory, then vanish into the night, leaving three roses in a distinctive arrangement and the unfinished bottle of cognac. In 2010 the gifts ceased appearing after 70 years of this ritual. Perhaps the donor(s) died. See
When Joe & KumKum visited ten years ago, Joe recited a stanza from Annabel Lee beside Poe’s grave. Talitha, whose son studied in Baltimore, has also visited the grave.
The poem itself is rich in poetic devices, said Geetha
- repetition both by epistrophe (ending lines with the same word or words) and anaphora (repetition of the same word at the beginning of successive lines),
- alliteration (repetition of the same sound at the beginning of two or more stressed syllables)
- assonance (repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded or followed by different consonants in the stressed syllables of adjacent words)
- inner rhymes and outer rhymes
The readers found it lyrical and haunting. KumKum clapped at the end of the reading to signify her pleasure in hearing Geetha develop the mystery of the poem in a crescendo. Devika agreed poetry was rewarding now that she is lavishing time on it after leaving it behind in Class 4. She mentioned Walter de la Mare; perhaps she is recalling her memory of the air of mystery surrounding The Listeners.
3. Hemjit
William Blake
William Blake (1757–1827) is one of the most original figures in the history of English poetry. Hemjit said he is counted among the hundred greatest Britons who ever lived. He was eccentric, indeed in Wordsworth’s opinion, “There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott.” He knew the Bible well and read it but he did not conform to any prevailing organised church. He was dedicated to art and uninfluenced by riches, writing in a poem (Milton: A Poem) “Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies.”
Here’s the brief story of how he married:
In 1782, Blake met John Flaxman, who was to become his patron, and Catherine Boucher, who was to become his wife. At the time, Blake was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. Telling Catherine and her parents the story, she expressed her sympathy, whereupon Blake asked her, "Do you pity me?" To Catherine's affirmative response he responded, "Then I love you." Blake married Catherine - who was five years his junior - on 18 August 1782 in St. Mary's Church, Battersea. Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an 'X'.
This is taken from the Biography Of William Blake where a lively picture of his life with paintings and engravings is presented. Having recited Blake already there is a biography of him at our last reading of Romantic poets a year ago:
Tate Gallery William Blake Poster for the 1978 exhibition
The Tate Gallery in London is holding a William Blake exhibition in Sep 2019. It is the gallery’s second such exhibition after the one in 1978 and will take a bold new look at this radical and ambitious artist, visionary printmaker, poet and painter who worked at a time of war, revolution and oppression. With around 300 works, including his watercolours, paintings and prints, the exhibition will provide a comprehensive overview of Blake’s achievements and ambitions across a range of media.
Hemjit said he chose the poem for the first four lines, the most beautiful he has ever read:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
The poem is elaborating a single theme: how cruelty to animals is a crime seeking the vengeance of heaven. Blake goes on to state many aphoristic ways of getting across the message, e.g.
A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
It reminded Hemjit of the Gita, that happiness lies within. Another example is kasturi, the oil derived from a musk deer and found near the male’s sex gland. For an explanatory note on its deeper significance, please read Hemjit's comment on this post.
4. Joe
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Lyrical Ballads, a co-production of Wordsworth and Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere stands as the very first in the collection of Lyrical Ballads, written deliberately in an ancient style of verse, and using obsolete spelling. It is a strange tale of a sailor who commits an act against nature (the killing of an albatross) that comes to haunt the rest of the voyage of his fellow shipmates. The poem is filled with symbolism and allows many interpretations aside from the surface one of sin, penitence, and making amends:
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffered, or I did:
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe….
One of the preachings in the poem is to make oneself part of nature and accept all creatures. The possibility of what Coleridge called the “One Life”—that “each thing has a life of its own, and we are all one life,” which is his summary of Spinoza’s thought, finds its place in the resolution of the sailor’s woe ultimately. Incidentally, the last poem in the collection was Wordsworth’s Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
At the age of thirty Coleridge gave up poetry and began a life of writing about poetry, the imagination, and fundamental discussions about literary subjects. Though not a philosopher he adapted the ideas of Kant and others. These reflections are in his volume Biographia Literaria (1817) where he laid out his famous definition of primary imagination (inherent in all people, which enables them to perceive the world and make sense of it) — and secondary imagination, which enables artists not merely to perceive connections but to invent new ones.
Coleridge was the tenth and youngest child of a school-teacher. He grew up with plenty of reading material in a household where his father told the children all manner of stories. Coleridge went to a grammar school after his father died and had a good teacher in Rev James Bowyer who grounded pupils in the classics and Shakespeare, teaching them to write clearly, with the use of metaphor and imagery, but to avoid exaggerated elevation. Later, with Wordsworth, this thrust was enshrined as “natural thoughts with natural diction.”
He went on to Jesus College in Cambridge and entered in 1791, writing poetry there for occasions. He had great sympathy for the French Revolution stemming from his reading of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). He became broadly liberal in attitude and defended activists of the time.
With Robert Southey, his fellow student, he hatched a scheme to start a commune in America; it did not pan out and he left Cambridge without taking a degree. He proceeded to give lectures, to start a magazine, and married Sara Fricker in 1795 to whom he wrote a poem, The Eolian Harp, which begins thus:
My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown
With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,
This is juvenile stuff from the great man, before he wrote his worthy poems. It became hard to support Sara and a baby born in 1796. He got money from tutoring a student and met Wordsworth (brother William and sister Dorothy) who lived a little distance away. Other familiar associates were Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt; both went on to become wonderful essayists.
He wrote the poem This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison, while his friends were away walking and he was confined to his garden. From there he ruminates:
Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower!
Does this not sound like Keats? To some it is only given once to shine radiantly and this was the year of much of Coleridge’s best verse. WhenWordsworth moved he did too and they collaborated to write Lyrical Ballads. He said the main concern was: “the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination.”
Coleridge around this time became a user of opium in its liquid tincture form, laudanum. This has been presumed to colour some of his poetry like Kubla Khan, but nobody knows. In the twentieth century it is commonplace that artists resort to hallucinatory drugs to have experiences that vivify their imagination; it’s akin to the steroids which athletes take.
Wordsworth himself claims a hand in the making of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by having suggested the theme. Coleridge attributed the shooting of the albatross as well as several lines to Wordsworth. The sailor does something terrible for reasons unknown and pays for it: why the Mariner shot the bird is not set out, but he suffers in consequence and there is much anguish. Things improve only when the Mariner changes his attitude towards the creatures of the sea: the sea-snakes which seemed ‘slimy things’ (l. 121) become transformed at the poem’s turning-point into ‘happy living things’ (l. 274). But that is not all, even when he comes ashore he has to do penance.
‘Instead of the Cross the Albatross About my neck was hung’ - illustration by Gustave Doré (1832–83)
Statue of the Ancient Mariner at Watchet, Somerset, England. The statue was unveiled in September 2003, as a tribute to Samuel Taylor Coleridge - sculpture by Olive Wootton
Later, the collaboration fell apart and Wordsworth went on with his work, while Coleridge did other things than poetry: he became a writer of prose and a man of letters. He went to Germany and immersed himself in the language and the philosophy of Kant and came back and wrote serious commentary on society, collected later in three volumes of Essays on His Own Times (1850). He wrote his well-known Lectures on Shakespeare in 1811-12, which have had a deep influence.
Coleridge had money troubles all his life, accentuated when an annuity he enjoyed from Thomas & Josiah Wedgwood since 1798 of £150 was halved in 1812. He took refuge with friends. In 1817 Sibylline Leaves was published; this was his last collection. He went to live with a physician who hoped to cure him of his opium addiction. Coleridge after many years of physical debility died in 1834.
Some lines in the poem have been parodied, e.g.
Some lines in the poem have been parodied, e.g.
Down dropt the breeze, the Sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be
In The Walrus and the Carpenter Lewis Carroll parodies this :
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
Some of the lines are classic and quotable:
Water, water, every where,
Ne any drop to drink.
Though Joe used the 1898 version with ancient spelling, there is another version published in 1817 by Coleridge with modernised spelling where the same lines are rendered:
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
Nor any drop to drink.
5. KumKum
John Keats, belongs to the celebrated group of English Romantic Poets. His poems were not much appreciated when he was alive. Now, his poems are considered among the finest that came out of this period. His Odes are jewels. Critics say, the two best odes of all time are his: Ode to Autumn and Ode on a Grecian Urn.
John Keats portrait by William Hilton
Keats’ life was short, born 1795, dead by 1821, succumbing to TB; a mere 25 years. Born in London, died in Rome.
Keats-Shelley House in Rome beside the Spanish Steps where Keats died
In such a short time Keats was able to leave behind a treasure trove of beautiful poems, a fact that astounds his admirers, even today. He is known to have been one of the quickest composers of sonnets in his time. Few know that he composed sixty-four Sonnets in his short life, some of them great ones, for example, When I have fears that I may cease to be and Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art. Bright Star was the title of the film that came out in 2009 celebrating Keats’ life, but focusing in a filmi way on his romance with Fanny Brawne, to whom he wrote another impassioned sonnet — which was forever imprinted in Joe’s mind after he read it at age twenty-two.
It is not the volume, but the quality and the artistry of his poems that elevates Keats to the front rank of poets. He published only three volumes of poetry in his lifetime. They were not appreciated by most critics of the time, and even scoffed at for being ‘Cockney’ in style (Byron was among those who disparaged Keats thus). His bold way of composing irked their traditional attitudes. Keats sold perhaps 200 copies of published poetry in his entire life.
It was a story of struggles. Tuberculosis was the demon he fought all his life. His mother, and later, his brother died of the disease. Ultimately, he too became a victim.
Keats suffered from the classic triad of poetic afflictions: poverty, unrequited love, and consumption — the last of which put paid to brighter hopes for the future. The few months in Rome where he went to recuperate on doctor's advice were painful. But he was sustained by the steadfast love of his friend and caregiver Joseph Severn, who was his only solace while wasting away. Keats died holding Severn's hands. Joseph Severn was an artist, and he painted the head of Keats reclining; a moving enigmatic image of the poet in death, as if resting. Severn died in 1879, sixty years later and is buried next to Keats in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome where Shelley's ashes were also interred. Severn wrote in one of his final dairy entries, “I begin to feel the loneliness of having lived too long.” His epitaph reads: Devoted friend and death-bed companion of JOHN KEATS.
John Keats on his deathbed by Joseph Severn – one of the most beautiful renditions of a human face
The Houghton Library of Harvard University stands within the Harvard Yard and has the largest collection of Keats poetry manuscripts and letters. When Joe and KumKum visited they not only saw this collection but the adjoining collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems stitched together in muslin wrappers; another room was full of original Samuel Johnson material. Many years before, they had the good fortune to visit Keats House in Hampstead, London, where Keats lodged for a time. It is preserved as a museum of Keatsiana.
Keats’ life has already been described with pictures at last year’s Romantic Poets session, which is worth reviewing again, for to hear his marvellous life re-told excites such admiration clothed in sorrow, that it is hard to hold back emotion.
It is thought that this is the urn which inspired Keats:
The Sosibios vase at the British Museum that is thought to have inspired him
but Joe has never seen a single vase with all the figures Keats described - the maidens loth, the pipes and timbrels, the heifer lowing, the bold lover who never can kiss, and so on.But here is one alleged to have inspired him:
Keats’ poem an 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' paired with Keats's tracing of an engraving of the Sosibios vase that is thought to have inspired him
It is thought he was looking at the Sosibios vase and Elgin Marbles at the British Museum on the same visit (he wrote a Sonnet on the latter and an Ode on the former). Joe said poets have a way of observing where they see into things, superposing their imagination on the object itself, so that they carry away not mundane reality, but the richer reality in their minds. And that is what they exploit later to write about.
Edward Hirsch in his introduction to The 64 Sonnets of Keats points out that Keats arrived at his ode stanza by experimenting with an amalgamation of the quatrain (abab) of Shakespearean sonnets with the sestet (cdecde) of Petrarchan sonnets. Thus, “each [ode] stanza is a fully integrated unit—while also weaving the sections into a whole.”
An online PDF Biography and Bibliography of John Keats may be consulted for further reading.
Edward Hirsch in his introduction to The 64 Sonnets of Keats points out that Keats arrived at his ode stanza by experimenting with an amalgamation of the quatrain (abab) of Shakespearean sonnets with the sestet (cdecde) of Petrarchan sonnets. Thus, “each [ode] stanza is a fully integrated unit—while also weaving the sections into a whole.”
An online PDF Biography and Bibliography of John Keats may be consulted for further reading.
6. Shoba
Sir Walter Scott
The Song of the Zetland Fisherman is not a self-standing poem but a song that is written into the novel, The Pirate. The fishermen in their boats are about to set sail for their fishing grounds, and the women are saying goodbye; their lord or udaller (the person who held tenancy of their lands) oversees their putting out and makes sure they have all their gear well-stowed and provisions to last their time at sea. Here is the passage of the novel immediately preceding the song:
The scene, therefore, was in busy and anxious animation, when the Udaller and his friends appeared on the beach. The various crews of about thirty boats, amounting each to from three to five or six men, were taking leave of their wives and female relatives, and jumping on board their long Norway skiffs, where their lines and tackle lay ready stowed. Magnus was not an idle spectator of the scene; he went from one place to another, enquiring into the state of their provisions for the voyage, and their preparations for the fishing—now and then, with a rough Dutch or Norse oath, abusing them for blockheads, for going to sea with their boats indifferently found, but always ending by ordering from his own stores a gallon of gin, a lispund [about 12 lbs] of meal, or some similar essential addition to their sea-stores. The hardy sailors, on receiving such favours, expressed their thanks in the brief gruff manner which their landlord best approved; but the women were more clamorous in their gratitude, which Magnus was often obliged to silence by cursing all female tongues from Eve’s downwards.
At length all were on board and ready, the sails were hoisted, the signal for departure given, the rowers began to pull, and all started from the shore, in strong emulation to get first to the fishing ground, and to have their lines set before the rest; an exploit to which no little consequence was attached by the boat’s crew who should be happy enough to perform it.
While they were yet within hearing of the shore, they chanted an ancient Norse ditty, appropriate to the occasion, of which Claud Halcro had executed the following literal translation:—
At length all were on board and ready, the sails were hoisted, the signal for departure given, the rowers began to pull, and all started from the shore, in strong emulation to get first to the fishing ground, and to have their lines set before the rest; an exploit to which no little consequence was attached by the boat’s crew who should be happy enough to perform it.
While they were yet within hearing of the shore, they chanted an ancient Norse ditty, appropriate to the occasion, of which Claud Halcro had executed the following literal translation:—
[text of The Song of the Zetland Fisherman]
With this context one can understand this is the kind of fishermen’s singing that lifts their spirits as they set out on their hazardous voyage to fishing grounds. It is a rousing song and Walter Scott has a sure ear for what is singable:
The breeze it shall pipe, so it pipe not too high,
And the gull be our songstress whene'er she flits by.
Sing on, my brave bird, while we follow, like thee,
By bank, shoal, and quicksand, the swarms of the sea;
And when twenty-score fishes are straining our line,
Sing louder, brave bird, for their spoils shall be thine.
You can read the novel The Pirate from which this song is taken as an e-book from Google Play Books for free.
7. Zakia
Lord Byron
There are four octets rhyming ABABCDCD. Byron indeed felt the pain of the lines:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met-
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
The end note (‘silence and tears’) is just right, a tender way to say farewell.
There is already an extensive biographical note on Byron in the post of our last Romantic Poets session in 2017 when Joe recited a number of poems by Byron including excerpts from Don Juan and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
Byron died in Greece after a futile attempt to free Greece from Ottoman subjugation. Falling ill and suffering from a fever, he was attended by quack doctors who bled him with leeches until he became delirious, went into a coma, and died. According to one observer, a theme in his life was his anguish over Greece: “Poor Greece … I have given her my time, my money, and my health; what could I do more? Now I give her my life.” That evening, he lapsed into a coma and twenty-four hours later the poet was dead. (Whom the Gods Love Die Young: A Modern Medical Perspective on Illnesses that Caused the Early Death of Famous People by Roy Macbeth Pitkin).
Zakia mentioned that Byron was described as ‘Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know’ by Lady Caroline Lamb, one of his married lovers. Another item of interest is that his daughter Ada by his wife Annabella Milbanke went on to become a mathematician, and the first computer programmer, by devising an algorithm to program the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage; the Engine was a mechanical device used to perform calculations until Ada showed it could do other things besides by ‘software’. Ada was married to the Earl of Lovelace. There is a computer language, named Ada in her honour.
Byron’s daughter by Annabella Millbanke - Ada, Countess of Lovelace
8. Thommo
Alphonse de Lamartine by François Gérard (1831)
After graduating in 1808 he led a studious life, travelling to Italy, and later meeting famous people like Jean-Jaques Rousseau and Madame de Stael (famous for her salon for intellectuals) in Paris. That was when he started writing plays and poetry. His poetic masterpiece is considered to be Les Méditations Poétiques (1820).
He entertained a love for Julie Charles whom he met in 1816 and wrote Le Lac after she died of TB. It is his best-known poem, and states that love and life are transient. The verse has the best lyrical quality of Lamartine’s poetry as the bereaved man sits by the lake and contemplates the woman he lost. Here are some meditative passages:
Le Lac
“O temps, suspends ton vol! et vous, heures propices,
Suspendez votre cours!
Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices
Des plus beaux de nos jours!
“Stay thou thy flight, O Time! and happy hours
Trail by with laggard feet!
Let all the savour of your delight be ours
Of all our days most sweet!
Trail by with laggard feet!
Let all the savour of your delight be ours
Of all our days most sweet!
…
“Aimons donc, aimons donc! de l’heure fugitive,
Hâtons-nous, jouissons!
L’homme n’a point de port, le temps n’a point de rive;
Il coule, et nous passons!”
“Ah! let us love, my Love, for Time is heartless,
Be happy while you may!
Man hath no Heaven and Time's coast is chartless.
He speeds; we pass away!”
Be happy while you may!
Man hath no Heaven and Time's coast is chartless.
He speeds; we pass away!”
You can listen to a fine French reading of Le Lac by Camille of the French Today website. After an introduction to Lamartine in French the reading starts at 8m 40s.
Lamartine secured a diplomatic assignment in Naples and married Mary-Ann Birch, but both the children from the union died early. He pursued a political career becoming a deputy in 1833, sympathetic to the Republican cause and continued until 1851. He turned to the left politically, and led the revolutionaries of 1848, becoming head of the Second Republic. He ensured the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France. He is known for his efforts to end slavery and the death penalty and enshrined the right to work in the politics of the day. By the end of that year, he left politics, failing to be elected after a revolt. The end of Lamartine's life was marked by money problems. In the late 1860s, almost ruined, he sold his ancestral property. He was paralysed by an attack in 1867, and died in Paris in 1869
You can read more at his Wikipedia entry.
The French version of the the short second poem Le papillon (The Butterfly) can be read for its sheer beauty of modern diction; the English translation tries to evoke it but feels antique by contrast, and does not have the magic of these lines, for instance:
S’enivrer de parfums, de lumière et d’azur,
Secouant, jeune encor, la poudre de ses ailes
[Drunk on the scents, on the light and the blue,
Dusting off fresh powder from its wings]
9. Priya
In Keats Ode on Indolence we are surprised to read of the poet turning away from all the three maidens graved in his imagination on the revolving vase, a vase of Phidian lore, i.e. made by Phidias who sculpted the Elgin Marbles exhibited in the adjoining space of the British Museum where Keats saw the Sosibios vase of the Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Keats had Ambition certainly to achieve fame in poetry, yet he shuns her because,
pale of cheek,
And ever watchful with fatiguèd eye;
… it springs
From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;
And why does he spurn Love? Was it because Love spurned him? He does not say.
His turning away from Poesy is harder to understand:
The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
Is heap’d upon her, maiden most unmeek,—
I knew to be my demon Poesy.
…
For Poesy!—no,—she has not a joy,—
At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,
And evenings steep’d in honey’d indolence;
Ah, now we understand, he is in the present mood so ‘steep’d in honey’d indolence’ that all the other attractions pale, by comparison. He bids the three Muses adieu for they ‘cannot raise My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass’. Keats was ever the poet in the moment, extracting the maximum inspiration from the surrounding influences, and compressing it into his poetry like a vintner pressing grapes for their elixir. He wasn’t going to be distracted:
Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,
Into the clouds, and never more return!
When Priya came to the end KumKum exclaimed “I love these Romantic poets.” The sentiment was seconded by Zakia.
10. Preeti
Endymion is a poem of ~4,000 lines divided into 4 books concerning Endymion, the lord of the island of Patmos, who leaves his sister Poena and goes off in quest of a maiden he sees in a dream. There are many adventures as Keats narrates the story taken from Greek mythology.
Preeti chose the Prologue to the poem (the first 62 lines) in which the famous opening line occurs:
A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases;
It requires a Keats to sustain for the length of the poem these luxuriant scenes of nature he paints for the readers:
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I’ll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm’d and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
The Poems
1. Devika — The Soldier's Return: A Ballad - Poem by Robert Burns (1759 – 1796)
WHEN wild war's deadly blast was blawn,
And gentle peace returning,
Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless,
And mony a widow mourning;
I left the lines and tented field,
Where lang I'd been a lodger,
My humble knapsack a' my wealth,
A poor and honest sodger.
A leal, light heart was in my breast,
My hand unstain'd wi' plunder;
And for fair Scotia hame again,
I cheery on did wander:
I thought upon the banks o' Coil,
I thought upon my Nancy,
I thought upon the witching smile
That caught my youthful fancy.
At length I reach'd the bonie glen,
Where early life I sported;
I pass'd the mill and trysting thorn,
Where Nancy aft I courted:
Wha spied I but my ain dear maid,
Down by her mother's dwelling!
And turn'd me round to hide the flood
That in my een was swelling.
Wi' alter'd voice, quoth I, "Sweet lass,
Sweet as yon hawthorn's blossom,
O! happy, happy may he be,
That's dearest to thy bosom:
My purse is light, I've far to gang,
And fain would be thy lodger;
I've serv'd my king and country lang—
Take pity on a sodger."
Sae wistfully she gaz'd on me,
And lovelier was than ever;
Quo' she, "A sodger ance I lo'ed,
Forget him shall I never:
Our humble cot, and hamely fare,
Ye freely shall partake it;
That gallant badge-the dear cockade,
Ye're welcome for the sake o't."
She gaz'd—she redden'd like a rose—
Syne pale like only lily;
She sank within my arms, and cried,
"Art thou my ain dear Willie?"
"By him who made yon sun and sky!
By whom true love's regarded,
I am the man; and thus may still
True lovers be rewarded.
"The wars are o'er, and I'm come hame,
And find thee still true-hearted;
Tho' poor in gear, we're rich in love,
And mair we'se ne'er be parted."
Quo' she, "My grandsire left me gowd,
A mailen plenish'd fairly;
And come, my faithfu' sodger lad,
Thou'rt welcome to it dearly!"
For gold the merchant ploughs the main,
The farmer ploughs the manor;
But glory is the sodger's prize,
The sodger's wealth is honor:
The brave poor sodger ne'er despise,
Nor count him as a stranger;
Remember he's his country's stay,
In day and hour of danger.
Bio of Poet
2. Geetha — The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
Poet Bio
3. Hemjit — Auguries of Innocence - poem By William Blake (1759 – 1796)
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State
A Horse misusd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear
A Skylark wounded in the wing
A Cherubim does cease to sing
The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright
Every Wolfs & Lions howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul
The wild deer, wandring here & there
Keeps the Human Soul from Care
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers knife
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbelievers fright
He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belovd by Men
He who the Ox to wrath has movd
Shall never be by Woman lovd
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spiders enmity
He who torments the Chafers Sprite
Weaves a Bower in endless Night
The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar
The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat
Feed them & thou wilt grow fat
The Gnat that sings his Summers Song
Poison gets from Slanders tongue
The poison of the Snake & Newt
Is the sweat of Envys Foot
The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artists Jealousy
The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags
A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent
It is right it should be so
Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands
Tools were made & Born were hands
Every Farmer Understands
Every Tear from Every Eye
Becomes a Babe in Eternity
This is caught by Females bright
And returnd to its own delight
The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar
Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore
The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath
Writes Revenge in realms of Death
The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air
Does to Rags the Heavens tear
The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun
The poor Mans Farthing is worth more
Than all the Gold on Africs Shore
One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands
Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole Nation sell & buy
He who mocks the Infants Faith
Shall be mockd in Age & Death
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall neer get out
He who respects the Infants faith
Triumphs over Hell & Death
The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons
The Questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to Reply
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesars Laurel Crown
Nought can Deform the Human Race
Like to the Armours iron brace
When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow
To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow
A Riddle or the Crickets Cry
Is to Doubt a fit Reply
The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile
Make Lame Philosophy to smile
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt
Theyd immediately Go out
To be in a Passion you Good may Do
But no Good if a Passion is in you
The Whore & Gambler by the State
Licencd build that Nations Fate
The Harlots cry from Street to Street
Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet
The Winners Shout the Losers Curse
Dance before dead Englands Hearse
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day
Blake short Bio
4. Joe — The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner: Text Of The Poem by Coleridge (1809 – 1849)
How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by Storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.
I.
It is an ancyent Marinere,
And he stoppeth one of three:
"By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye
"Now wherefore stoppest me?
"The Bridegroom's doors are open'd wide
"And I am next of kin;
"The Guests are met, the Feast is set,—
"May'st hear the merry din.
.. If thou'st got a laughsome tale,
"Marinere! come with me."
…
Quoth he, there was a Ship—
"Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard Loon!
"Or my Staff shall make thee skip.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The wedding guest stood still
And listens like a three year's child;
The Marinere hath his will.
…
And thus spake on that ancyent man.
The bright-eyed Marinere.
The Ship was cheer'd, the Harbour clear'd—
Merrily did we drop
Below the Kirk, below the Hill,
Below the Light-house top.
…
The wedding-guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
The Bride hath pac'd into the Hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry Minstralsy.
..
Listen, Stranger! Storm and Wind,
A Wind and Tempest strong
For days and weeks it play'd us freaks—
Like Chaff we drove along.
Listen, Stranger! Mist and Snow,
And it grew wond'rous cauld:
And Ice mast-high came floating by
As green as Emerauld.
…
The Ice was here, the Ice was there,
The Ice was all around:
It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd—
Like noises of a swound.
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the Fog it came;
And an it were a Christian Soul,
"We hail'd it in God's name.
The Marineres gave it biscuit-worms,
And round and round it flew:
The Ice did split with a Thunder-fit;
The Helmsman steer'd us thro'.
And a good south wind sprung up behind,
The Albatross did follow;
And every day for food or play
Came to the Marineres hollo!
…
"Why Look'st thou so?"—with my cross bow
I shot the Albatross.
II.
The Sun came up upon the right,
Out of the Sea came he;
And broad as a weft upon the left
Went down into the Sea.
And the good south wind still blew behind.,
But no sweet Bird did follow
Ne any day for food or play
Came to the Marinere's hollo!
And I had done an hellish thing
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averr'd, I had kill'd the Bird
That made the Breeze to blow.
…
The breezes blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow follow'd free:
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent Sea.
Down dropt the breeze, the Sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the Sea.
…
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion,
As idle as a painted Ship
Upon a painted Ocean,
Water, water, every where
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
…
And some in dreams assured were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so:
Nine fathom deep he had follow'd us
From the Land of Mist and Snow.
And every tongue thro' utter drouth
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Ah wel-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young;
Instead of the Cross the Albatross
5. Kavita — A Glimpse By Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)
A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.
Whitman Bio
6. KumKum — Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats (1791 – 1825)
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
7. Saras — Inchcape Rock - Poem by Robert Southey (1774 – 1843)
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The Ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
When the Rock was hid by the surge’s swell,
The Mariners heard the warning Bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok
The Sun in the heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds scream’d as they wheel’d round,
And there was joyaunce in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcpe Bell was seen
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walk’d his deck,
And fix’d his eye on the darker speck.
He felt the cheering power of spring,
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover’s mirth was wickedness.
His eye was on the Inchcape Float;
Quoth he, “My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I’ll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok.”
The boat is lower’d, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the bell from the Inchcape Float.
Down sank the Bell with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles rose and burst around;
Quoth Sir Ralph, “The next who comes to the Rock,
Won’t bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok.”
Sir ralph the Rover sail’d away,
He scour’d the seas for many a day;
And now grown rich with plunder’d store,
He steers his course for Scotland’s shore.
So thick a haze o’erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day,
At evening it hath died away.
On the deck the Rover takes his stand,
So dark it is they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, “It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising Moon.”
“Canst hear,” said one, “the breakers roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore.”
“Now, where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell.”
They hear no sound, the swell is strong,
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along;
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,
“Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!”
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But even is his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear;
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.
Bio of the Poet
8. Shoba — Song of the Zetland Fisherman by Sir Walter Scott (1771 – 1832)
Farewell, merry maidens, to song, and to laugh,
For the brave lads of Westra are bound to the Haaf;
And we must have labour, and hunger, and pain,
Ere we dance with the maids of Dunrossness again.
For now, in our trim boats of Noroway deal,
We must dance on the waves, with the porpoise and seal
The breeze it shall pipe, so it pipe not too high,
And the gull be our songstress whene'er she flits by.
Sing on, my brave bird, while we follow, like thee,
By bank, shoal, and quicksand, the swarms of the sea;
And when twenty-score fishes are straining our line,
Sing louder, brave bird, for their spoils shall be thine.
We'll sing while we bait, and we'll sing while we haul
For the deeps of the Haaf have enough for us all:
There is torsk for the gentle, and skate for the carle,
And there's wealth for bold Magnus, the son of the earl.
Huzza! my brave comrades, give way for the Haaf,
We shall sooner come back to the dance and the laugh;
For life without mirth is a lamp without oil;
Then, mirth and long life to the bold Magnus Troil!
(From the novel The Pirate.)
Haaf häf The deep-sea fishing for cod, ling, and tusk, off the Shetland Isles.
Poet Bio:
9. Thommo — Two poems by Alphonse de Lamartine (1790 – 1869)
The Lake
Thus ever drawn toward far shores uncharted,
Into eternal darkness borne away,
May we not ever on Time's sea, unthwarted,
Cast anchor for a day?
O lake! Now hardly by a year grown older,
And nigh the well-known waves her eyes should greet,
Behold! I sit alone on this same boulder
Thou knewest for her seat.
Thus didst thou murmur in thy rocky haven,
Thus didst thou shatter on its stony breast;
Thus fell the wind-flung foam on sands engraven
Where her dear feet had pressed.
One eve- remembering thou?- in silence drifting,
'Twixt deep and sky no sound had echo save
Afar the rowers dipping oars and lifting
Over thy waters suave.
When all at once a voice that made earth wonder
From the charmed shore drove all the echoes wide,
And rapt the wave, not fain as I nor fonder,
And with sweet words did chide:
'Stay thou thy flight, O Time! and happy hours
Trail by with laggard feet!
Let all the savour of your delight be ours
Of all our days most sweet!
'Too many grieving souls to thee are praying;
Nay, leave not these immune;
Bear off with thee their sorrows undelaying;
Leave happy souls their boon.
'Nay, but in vain I ask one gracious hour;
Time flies and will not hark.
I bid the night abide and dawn doth shower
His splendour down the dark.
'Ah! let us love, my Love, for Time is heartless,
Be happy while you may!
Man hath no Heaven and Time's coast is chartless.
He speeds; we pass away!'
Churl Time, and can it be sweet moments cherished,
Wherein love fills our lives with teeming bliss,
Speed far away and be as swiftly perished
As days when sorrow is?
Nay! Ere we go may we not leave sure traces?
Nay! Passed for ever? Beyond all reprieve?
What Time bestows on us, what Time effaces
He nevermore shall give?
O! everlasting night, deep pit unsounded,
What dost thou with engulphéd days untold?
Speak! Wilt thou yield us back the bliss unbounded
Once ravished from our hold?
O! lake, mute rocks, caves, leafy woodland shading,
You whom Time spares or clothes with newer sheen,
Keep of this night, fair Nature, keep unfading
The memory ever green!
In all thy calms and all thy tempests blending,
Fair lake, and in thy forelands' smiling fronts,
In thy dark pines and thy wild cliffs impending
Over thy crystal fonts,
In the winds passing, with a trembling lightness,
Heard in the echoes that thy shores throw far,
Seen in the beams that fall with sheeny whiteness
Wave-borne from the clear star!
Let moaning breezes thro' the rushes gliding,
All perfume stirring thy sweet air above,
All seen or heard or breathéd bear this tiding,
'Hereby they once did love!'
translated by Wilfrid Thorley
The Butterfly
Coming with the daffodils and dying with the roses,
Wafted by the zephyr's wing athwart the spaces high,
Lurking in the flower's bloom or e'er its breast uncloses,
Reeling with sweet draughts of scent, and light, and deep blue sky;
Shaking wide its dusty wings and like the breezes breasting
Burdenless and innocent the sky's eternal steep:-
Thus doth fare the butterfly like hope that never resting,
Rifles all but cannot quench desire that ever questing,
Bears it home to heaven again for lasting joy and deep.
translated by Wilfrid Thorley
translated by Wilfrid Thorley
Bio of the poet
10. Zakia — When we two parted... by George Gordon Lord Byron(1788 – 1824)
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
colder they kiss,
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow-
If felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me-
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well-
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met-
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
~Lord Byron~
Bio of the poet - Lord Byron (George Gordon)
1788–1824
11. Pamela — Inspiration by Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
Whate’er we leave to God, God does,
And blesses us;
The work we choose should be our own,
God leaves alone.
If with light head erect I sing,
Though all the Muses lend their force,
From my poor love of anything,
The verse is weak and shallow as its source.
But if with bended neck I grope
Listening behind me for my wit,
With faith superior to hope,
More anxious to keep back than forward it;
Making my soul accomplice there
Unto the flame my heart hath lit,
Then will the verse forever wear—
Time cannot bend the line which God hath writ.
Always the general show of things
Floats in review before my mind,
And such true love and reverence brings,
That sometimes I forget that I am blind.
But now there comes unsought, unseen,
Some clear divine electuary,
And I, who had but sensual been,
Grow sensible, and as God is, am wary.
I hearing get, who had but ears,
And sight, who had but eyes before,
I moments live, who lived but years,
And truth discern, who knew but learning’s lore.
I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
A clear and ancient harmony
Pierces my soul through all its din,
As through its utmost melody—
Farther behind than they, farther within.
More swift its bolt than lightning is,
Its voice than thunder is more loud,
It doth expand my privacies
To all, and leave me single in the crowd.
It speaks with such authority,
With so serene and lofty tone,
That idle Time runs gadding by,
And leaves me with Eternity alone.
Now chiefly is my natal hour,
And only now my prime of life;
Of manhood’s strength it is the flower,
‘Tis peace’s end and war’s beginning strife.
It comes in summer’s broadest noon,
By a grey wall or some chance place,
Unseasoning Time, insulting June,
And vexing day with its presuming face.
Such fragrance round my couch it makes,
More rich than are Arabian drugs,
That my soul scents its life and wakes
The body up beneath its perfumed rugs.
Such is the Muse, the heavenly maid,
The star that guides our mortal course,
Which shows where life’s true kernel’s laid,
Its wheat’s fine flour, and its undying force.
She with one breath attunes the spheres,
And also my poor human heart,
With one impulse propels the years
Around, and gives my throbbing pulse its start.
I will not doubt for evermore,
Nor falter from a steadfast faith,
For thought the system be turned o’er,
God takes not back the word which once He saith.
I will not doubt the love untold
Which not my worth nor want has bought,
Which wooed me young, and woos me old,
And to this evening hath me brought.
My memory I’ll educate
To know the one historic truth,
Remembering to the latest date
The only true and sole immortal youth.
Be but thy inspiration given,
No matter through what danger sought,
I’ll fathom hell or climb to heaven,
And yet esteem that cheap which love has bought.
Fame cannot tempt the bard Who’s famous with his God,
Nor laurel him reward Who has his Maker’s nod.
Poet Bio
12. Priya — Ode on Indolence by John Keats (1795 – 1821)
‘They toil not, neither do they spin.’
One morn before me were three figures seen,
With bowèd necks, and joinèd hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp’d serene,
In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;
They pass’d, like figures on a marble urn,
When shifted round to see the other side;
They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
And they were strange to me, as may betide
With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.
How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?
How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?
Was it a silent deep-disguisèd plot
To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb’d my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower:
O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness?
A third time pass’d they by, and, passing, turn’d
Each one the face a moment whiles to me;
Then faded, and to follow them I burn’d
And ached for wings, because I knew the three;
The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;
The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
And ever watchful with fatiguèd eye;
The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
Is heap’d upon her, maiden most unmeek,—
I knew to be my demon Poesy.
They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:
O folly! What is Love? and where is it?
And for that poor Ambition! it springs
From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;
For Poesy!—no,—she has not a joy,—
At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,
And evenings steep’d in honey’d indolence;
O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,
That I may never know how change the moons,
Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!
And once more came they by:—alas! wherefore?
My sleep had been embroider’d with dim dreams;
My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er
With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:
The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,
Tho’ in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;
The open casement press’d a new-leaved vine,
Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay;
O Shadows! ’twas a time to bid farewell!
Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.
So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise
My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!
Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;
Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,
And for the day faint visions there is store;
Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,
Into the clouds, and never more return!
Poet Bio
13. Preeti — Excerpt from Endymion, A Poetic Romance, by John Keats (1795 – 1821)
(excerpt)
BOOK I
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast;
They always must be with us, or we die.
Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now, at once adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.
Poet Bio
Thanks Joe again for the beautiful dissertation.
ReplyDeleteThe reference to the musk deer that I read was in the context of the first four lines of the poem.
Blake mentions he beholds .divinity, eternity, infinity in minute things like a grain of sand,flower and palm of our hand. But many fail to realize it and seek externally for meanings in life. I was thus reminded of the musk deer who it is said searches frantically for the scent not realizing the fact it is emanating from its own body
Dear Hemjit,
ReplyDeleteSomehow I missed your comment two days ago on the blog.
Thank you for the clarification regarding the musk deer's scent, the kasturi. I now appreciate the analogy, for throwing light on the way people fail to realise that the frantic search for external things may fail - they need to look inward.
A fine thought and good analogy. Thank you. I have modified the post accordingly.
joe
Lovely account, Joe.
ReplyDeleteI was engrossed in my novel, heard a message come in: and it was your blog post, Joe.
Love the pictures of the participants and the food.
K2
[9:53 PM, 6/22/2018] Kumkum
What a wonderful romantic poet session it was with the rain food fun and warmth. Kum Kum thanks for the cucumber cheese sandwich. Joe the banana halwa you cooked was amazing. I had no idea you cook too among other things. And Zakia the Eid Sheer Khurma was too delicious for words. Haven't tasted anything like it before. What a flavour! Thanks. - Hemjit 6/20/2018
ReplyDelete