Today's poet

[Nathaniel Lee]

Any poets doing Edale ?. If so when are you Recceing.

[Stef F]

Hi Freckle

I love this poem because of the images it provokes, but I can't make up my mind what the message is. He is sad when he writes it and thinks the swans will eventually move on? Have I missed the point entirely?

Stef

The Wild Swans at Coole
W B Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

[Derby Tup]

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam,
magnetic transient whose death blooms
and vanishes--being, nothingness--forever:
broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness.

Pablo Neruda Sonnet IX

[Hes]

Hi Freckle

I love this poem because of the images it provokes, but I can't make up my mind what the message is. He is sad when he writes it and thinks the swans will eventually move on? Have I missed the point entirely?

Stef

I did this one in school and I have to say that analysis of poetry often kills it for me and it is lovely to read this afresh after 20 or so years. I can't remember what I was told it was about but for me it is a man in the autumn of his life looking back on how his life has changed...maybe the hope and flush of first love has been soured or he has lost those he loved...?... and yet the swans stay constant as symbol of purity, passion and love. The swans moving on bit makes me wonder if that symbolises his feelings about his own mortality and death.

Then again, maybe he just likes the swans and would miss them if they fly off!!

[Hes]

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam,
magnetic transient whose death blooms
and vanishes--being, nothingness--forever:
broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness.

Pablo Neruda Sonnet IX

ahhhh...Pablo....the sea....love....I need a dreamy emoticon, any ideas on that score?

[Hes]

Thanks for that. I don't stay up late enough to catch all the offerings at the time they are posted
I was listening to Radio 4 on the way back from work yesterday and they were talking about the nightingale. In the 1st World War apparently in the trenches they could hear the nightingale song and it was often the last thing a lot of them heard before they had to go over the top

How sad and beautiful. Poor guys.

On a lighter note Alf...your signature? Big Lebowski?

[Stef F]

I agree, analysis is not something that would add to the enjoyment of the poetry. I think the ending spoilt it for me. There was something very negative about it.

I did this one in school and I have to say that analysis of poetry often kills it for me and it is lovely to read this afresh after 20 or so years. I can't remember what I was told it was about but for me it is a man in the autumn of his life looking back on how his life has changed...maybe the hope and flush of first love has been soured or he has lost those he loved...?... and yet the swans stay constant as symbol of purity, passion and love. The swans moving on bit makes me wonder if that symbolises his feelings about his own mortality and death.

Then again, maybe he just likes the swans and would miss them if they fly off!!

[N-dubya]

I think it is impossible at some level not to analyse the poetry that you read or even write.

[Alf]

How sad and beautiful. Poor guys.

On a lighter note Alf...your signature? Big Lebowski?

Yep well spotted



A sad and slightly spooky sonnet about loss:

Much as he left it when he went from us
Here was the room again where he had been
So long that something oh him should be seen,
Or felt—and so it was. Incredulous,
I turned about, loath to be greeted thus,
And there he was in his old chair, serene
As ever, and as laconic as lean
As when he lived, and as cadaverous.

Calm as he was of old when we were young,
He sat there gazing at the pallid flame
Before him. "And how far will this go on?"
I thought. He felt the failure of my tongue,
And smiled: "I was not here until you came;
And I shall not be here when you are gone."


Edwin Arlington Robinson

[Hes]

Yep well spotted



A sad and slightly spooky sonnet about loss:

Much as he left it when he went from us
Here was the room again where he had been
So long that something oh him should be seen,
Or felt—and so it was. Incredulous,
I turned about, loath to be greeted thus,
And there he was in his old chair, serene
As ever, and as laconic as lean
As when he lived, and as cadaverous.

Calm as he was of old when we were young,
He sat there gazing at the pallid flame
Before him. "And how far will this go on?"
I thought. He felt the failure of my tongue,
And smiled: "I was not here until you came;
And I shall not be here when you are gone."


Edwin Arlington Robinson

Never come across this poet before but I really like this. Melancholy and eerie.

(ps...I'm a big Coen Bros fan)