Poetry

[Padraig]

No, but I think he has made it his own poem. Which is fine. Many people can translate.

Good answer, ff. Lets me off the hook. Maybe I'll get to know more about the poetry of my native tongue, but first loads of grammar, vocabulary and translation.

[johncorrigan]

It is lovely - I was a little disconcerted at first by all the "There was a time" - as if the poem was leading to a present where these thoughts have changed; but I think it's more about how these thoughts have accumulated, one by one, over time leading to the poet's present feelings. And I like the fact that the poet doesn't completely dismiss ale and meat, or drinking halls and contact with other humans, but merely finds in Nature things that are "sweeter" to him/her.

"a place without sorrow" ...

ferney, for me 'Wild Man comes to the Monastery' reflects a bit on the old Celtic form of worship, worshipping outside in Creation. Once the influences of Celtic Christianity had been pushed back to the edges of Europe and Roman forms took over, God then resided in 'His House' and worshippers could only experience 'Him' when the powers allowed it - the 'prison-house of God' as I once read Rabrindanath Tagore describe it. Tagore writes 'the priests who ply faith bar the door' but that the poet should worship 'In the star filled sky, flower filled forest'. The Wildman, as you say, enjoys the Monastery with its ale and meat but practises a different branch of worship, an older one, and I think he is reminding his readers that that is where their roots lie too.

That was interesting about vinteul finding a Flann O'Brien connection, and thanks Padraig for the fine bit of Heaney.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh, that's brilliant, johnc - many thanks.

[Padraig]

http://www.rte.ie/news/

Apologies. Scroll down to Features, "Barn made famous..."

https://www.tcd.ie/English/patrickkavanagh/inniskeenroad.html

[johncorrigan]

Brilliant Padraig...hope they get the cash together...if they save it do you think they'll have dances or poetry readings?

On a different note entirely I was listening to a fine episode of Radio 4's 'Soul Music' this morning about Violetta Parra's great anthem 'Gracias a la Vida' and a woman talked about being inspired by a poem from the Terezin concentration camp by Pavel Friedmann about a butterfly and comparing its hope and despair to 'Gracias'. Thought I'd post it.

The Butterfly

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
against a white stone…

Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ‘way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished to
kiss the world goodbye.

For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto
But I have found my people here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut candles in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here,
In the ghetto.

Pavel Friedmann, 1942

[Padraig]

John, Ill have to seek out that programme to fully understand your post, but ther'e no escaping the utter sadness of beauty too late.

[Nick Armstrong]

By popular request - something for the season (yes, I know it's more Epiphany than Advent, but more for the 'cold journey' time of year...)

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Than at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different: this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.


T.S. Eliot - Journey of the Magi

[antongould]

Very impressed you found time to do this on Cyber Monday Rumpole

[teamsaint]

Very impressed you found time to do this on Cyber Monday Rumpole

indeed.

Hope he didnt miss out again.

Anyway, fab poem.

[johncorrigan]

Anyway, fab poem.

One of the truly great ones!

[Nick Armstrong]

Very impressed you found time to do this on Cyber Monday Rumpole

Presumably you acted as bodyguard as Lady Gould pillaged Fenwicks on Black Friday, anton?

[antongould]

Presumably you acted as bodyguard as Lady Gould pillaged Fenwicks on Black Friday, anton?

Lady Gould is a great supporter of your views on Black Friday, Cyber Monday and others, no doubt, yet to be invented......

[Padraig]

"This," said Mr Pickwick, looking around him, "this is, indeed, comfort."
"Our invariable custom," replied Mr.Wardle."Everybody sits down with us on Christmas eve, as you see them now - servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, rake up the fire."
Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred.The deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the furthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face.
"How it snows!", said one of the men, in a low voice.
"Snows, does it?", said Wardle.
"Rough, cold night, sir", replied the man,"and there's a wind got up, that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud."
.............
"Ah!", said the old lady, "tHere was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect - just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas eve, too, and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblin that carried away old Gabriel Grub."
"The story about what?", said Mr Pickwick.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," replied Wardle. "About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppse to have been carried away by goblins."
"Suppose!" ejaculated the old lady. "Is there anybody hardy enough to disbelieve it? Suppose! Haven't you heard ever since you were a child that he was carried away by the goblins, and don't you know he I]was[/I]?"
"Verywell mother, he was, if you like," said Wardle, laughing. "He was carried away by goblins, Pickwickl; and there's an end of the matter."
"No, no", said Mr.Pickwick, "not an end of it, I assure you; for I must hear how, and why, and all about it."
Wardlw smiled, as every head was bent forward to hear; and filling out the wassail with no stinted hand. nodded a health to Mr.Pickwick, and began as follows:

The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

St Lucy's Day was a couple of weeks ago, but at the time Donne wrote his poem, her feast day coincided with the solstice and the imagery he uses is more appropriate for today. With apologies to anyone whose birthday is today, and in memoriam anyone whose birthday it would have been today.

A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.

John DONNE

[amateur51]

By popular request - something for the season (yes, I know it's more Epiphany than Advent, but more for the 'cold journey' time of year...)

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Than at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different: this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.


T.S. Eliot - Journey of the Magi

Around the time that our English teacher Mr Jones brought the Eliot to our attention, he also introduced this Betjeman poem.

Both poems have their considerable merits of course, but it's the Betjeman that makes me smile, in spite of my being an atheist.

Christmas by John Betjeman


The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Thank you Mr Jones, fondly remembered .