Number 157: Keats "When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be"

"When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be"

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high piled books, in charact'ry,

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

-- John Keats

Hap Notes: This poem has been going through my head all weekend so I'm gently sitting it down here so I won't have to carry it around (I hope.) Don't get me wrong, I like the poem, it's just a tad more poignant than I like to be feeling, all in all.

Keats, of course, was a sickly fella and while he did not out-live his poetry compatriots and allies (like Byron and Shelley) they did not out-live him by much. So we always have to keep in mind that these second generation Romantic poets were very young (and, like all humans, sometimes foolish) with all that implies about their intensity.

It's worth noting that their pal Leigh Hunt lived to be more than 70 years old and his name rarely first springs to mind when thinking of the Romantic poets. Byron, Shelley and Keats get the posthumous fame, Hunt got to live longer and eat more strawberries and see more sunsets and feel more rain and snow and see his children grow up. We don't always get a choice in this but, it's interesting to speculate which we would choose. (As for me, I side with Hunt- he wrote some fine (albeit a tad narrow) poems. He had troubles but he lived through them. He was a bit petty (er.. human) and he lacked the "high creative voice" but, there you have it. You cannot have everything, and, as I always say, even if you did have everything where would you put it? Here's an idea-- I'll give you everything in the world if you agree to keep it exactly where it is already. Okay? Now you have everything. Go work on something else.

I, digress.

But not really. Keats' sonnet is actually talking about this life and what he longs for from it. In the first quatrain he talks of all the writing he wants to do. Keats was a man on mission as far as writing poetry was concerned and he wrote a remarkable amount of sterling work in a very short time-- he burned with the stuff. (Breaking off again to say that book-o-phile that I was, when I first read the poem in junior high I thought he meant he was worried about READING all the books he wanted to, not writing them. I can still relate to this.)

In the second quatrain of this Elizabethan sonnet (for a brief second, I always flash on Shakespeare when I read this poem- makes sense, eh?) Keats says an early death would see him lose the experience of "High Romance." Which is exactly what he's experiencing as he writes this poem (more on that later.) The high romance of the mysteries of life, the beauties, the ecstasies, the tragedies-- all this would be lost to the poet were he to die, he laments (in high romantic fashion.)

He also says he'll miss the glories of romantic love. The "unreflected" implies to me that the fair creature he is in love with may not return his love with his intensity (who could?), and that feeling, of loving someone elusive, is a powerful and magical and painful feeling.

In the final two verses we get to the heart of the matter – Keats yearns. He longs. He pines. For what, he is not exactly sure although he's certainly given it a pretty good description in the poem. But he (and , I think, most thinking humans) feels intensely that there is more – something beyond all this love and fame. This loneliness of the soul is a big part of Keats' work – the thrill of life and love and the sheer pleasure of looking at the universe, the stars, fills him with a sense of loss (that he may cease to be.)

But I think Keats is saying something else very important here; that all the things we think we want are not nearly as grand as the "high romance," the life of the soul, the spirit. And this, is a very lonely feeling. Beautiful. Silent. Full of Awe. But lonely. (If I may, "silent, upon a peak in Darien"?) The terrifyingly gorgeous nothing, which I think Keats thinks (or maybe I think) is just the jumping off point for truly experiencing life.

Keats always knows there's an ineffable something else, something deep and important. Nobody I can think of writes poetry better about this feeling. So his search for the "high romance" (what Frost calls a 'lover's quarrel' with the world) IS the high romance he craves, in many ways.

If you don't get the tiniest stab of heartache that Keats only lived to be 25 years old, I think you should check your pulse, luv.

Here's the last place we've talked about Keats before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-124-john-keats-ode-on-grecian.html

(you do know that you can search the whole blog from the search bar at the top, yes? There's more Keats, if you want it.)

Number 156: Owen Sheers "Not Yet My Mother"

Not Yet My Mother

Yesterday I found a photo
of you at seventeen,
holding a horse and smiling,
not yet my mother.

The tight riding hat hid your hair,
and your legs were still the long shins of a boy's.
You held the horse by the halter,
your hand a fist under its huge jaw.

The blown trees were still in the background
and the sky was grained by the old film stock,
but what caught me was your face,
which was mine.

And I thought, just for a second, that you were me.
But then I saw the woman's jacket,
nipped at the waist, the ballooned jodhpurs,
and of course the date, scratched in the corner.

All of which told me again,
that this was you at seventeen, holding a horse
and smiling, not yet my mother,
although I was clearly already your child.

-- Owen Sheers

Hap Notes: Owen Sheers (born 1974) is an extraordinary writer and his poetry is often like a photograph one stares at (as in today's poem) and then begins to really see things. His economy of phrasing is remarkably eloquent. He has a wonderful ear for the words, so it won't surprise you to learn that while he was born in Fiji, he was raised in Wales. He's won scads of awards already, and he presented a popular television series in Great Britain, "A Poet's Guide to Britain." He has also written fiction and non-fiction.

Go to the bathroom mirror and look deep into your own reflection. Your mother is in there. (Actually, in my case my grandmother is also in there. This would be alarming to me except I loved my grandma so much and have missed her so deeply all these years after her death that I am always delighted to see her again, even if it is just me.) When you see your mother in your facial characteristics, it's actually a little disconcerting. I mean, who are you? Are you part of your mom and dad, are you separate and completely different from them? If you are so different from them, why do you look so much like them? Why does the sheer force of genetics pull at us so mysteriously?

Notice also in the poem how Sheers is saying something about the masculine in the feminine and the feminine in the masculine. If you are a woman, you certainly still resemble your dad, do you not?

And when he says she's not yet his mother, what is he saying about the way people change as they age, who they become? And how does that change affect the future child? Can you see things in your mother when she was younger that she no longer has, that you still have? Will you lose those things, too, whatever they are; naivete, softness, vulnerability, innocence, verve, whatever? Maybe those are things that you and your mother still share. That mirror holds a lot of information when you really look into it.

I'm pretty daffy about Sheers as a poet right now, his books, The Blue Book (2000), and Skirrid Hill (2005), are filled with deft observations. His phrasing is powerfully touching. We'll do more Sheers this year, I believe.

Here's a good Sheers quote: "Even though I don't have an everyday spoken Welsh accent, when I read my poems in my head my poems do have a Welsh accent - so I think the rhythms of the people that I was brought up around and the people who I met when I was growing up right until I was eighteen, the rhythms and the metre of their speech and their accent is very much kind of embedded in the poetry."

and another: "The best advice I got when I was starting to write was quite simply read poetry - it's amazing how many people try to write poetry or do write poetry and don't actually read that much of it. And it's a bit like asking someone to go away and make a film and they've never seen a film or to go and play football and they've never really watched or studied football. You have to know what people are doing with the language and with poetry at the time that you're writing. "

You can find more Sheers here: www.poetryarchive.stage.goodtechnology.net/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=5918

Number 155: William Morris "After Avalon"

After Avalon

A ship with shields before the sun,
Six maidens round the mast,
A red-gold crown on every one,
A green gown on the last.

The fluttering green banners there
Are wrought with ladies' heads most fair,
And a portraiture of Guenevere
The middle of each sail doth bear.

A ship with sails before the wind,
And round the helm six knights,
Their heaumes are on, whereby, half blind,
They pass by many sights.

The tatter'd scarlet banners there
Right soon will leave the spear-heads bare.
Those six knights sorrowfully bear
In all their heaumes some yellow hair.

--William Morris

Hap Notes: William Morris (1834-1896) was an amazing guy. He was a painter, a printer, a poet, a writer, a socialist organizer and a textile designer. You've heard of the Morris chair, maybe? It's not a Stickley Arts and Crafts invention named to honor Morris; Stickley took the design of the chair and modified it from Morris' original. Morris was one of the first writers to use fantasy and was one of the originators of the genre. He was actually offered Poet Laureate after Tennyson died (it's a life long post in England) and turned it down. His book designs and textiles were enormously influential in 20th century design. I haven't even scraped the surface and he did all this in his 62 year life span!

The poem is willfully mysterious. Morris is describing the barges that carry Arthur and Guinevere to Avalon. Avalon is a mythical (maybe) island where King Arthur was taken to treat his wounds after the battle with Mordred. It is also said to be where Joseph of Arimathea carried the Holy Grail when he visited England (remember that story?) It is said that Arthur was buried there and will rise up again when England needs him.

Now, there's a place, a monastery in Glastonbury, which is settled on a hill that at one time was surrounded by swamp and water. It is said to be Avalon and the monks living there claimed to have exhumed a casket with the remains of King Arthur within. We can't really check on this since it was in 1191. Long time ago. On the simple log casket was a slab of stone and on the slab was a lead cross with the words (in Latin) Here lies the renowned King Arthur" or some have claimed it said "Here lies King Arthur the once and future king." The cross has never been found. It was said that the bones of Arthur were huge, implying he was very tall.

Breaking off briefly to say that the history of holy and valuable relics is often that they are lost or mislaid. Our species has a habit of losing stuff that we say is important. The Holy Grail, the Iron Cross of Arthur, etc. etc. We get a holy relic, put it down for a moment to get a cup of coffee and when we come back we can't find it. Just sayin'. So when you misplace your glasses, don't fret- you'll find them. Unless they're a holy relic.

Avalon is said to be a magical place where crops and fruits grow abundantly by themselves. It is a place where mortal wounds can be healed. A Heaume, by the by, is a big helmet that extends down to and is supported by the shoulders.

On the masthead is the famous chair, some Morris wallpapers and tapestries and a Morris painting.

Here's a good Morris quote: "A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works."

and another: "If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

one more: "The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life."

You can find more Morris here: www.poemhunter.com/william-morris/

And because it's Saturday, three things to delight or amuse you. First, Barbie dolls (and other dolls) staged in re-enactments of ancient history and much more: www.avalonknights.com/index.htm

Do you like hot music? Here's Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton and Teddy Wilson doing "Avalon": www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbU4zwhOGVg&feature=related

And finally, the Avalon most people remember from the 70s and 80s Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D6EiQs5KsY&feature=related

Number 153: W.S. Merwin "To Luck"

To Luck

In the cards and at the bend in the road
we never saw you
in the womb and in the crossfire
in the numbers
whatever you had your hand in
which was everything
we were told never to put
our faith in you
to bow to you humbly after all
because in the end there was nothing
else we could do
but not to believe in you

still we might coax you with pebbles
kept warm in the hand
or coins or the relics
of vanished animals
observances rituals
not binding upon you
who make no promises
we might do such things only
not to neglect you
and risk your disfavor
oh you who are never the same
who are secret as the day when it comes
you whom we explain
as often as we can
without understanding

-- W.S. Merwin

Hap Notes: Since it's Friday the 13th, I thought a poem about luck and how we hope for it, don't really believe in it, yet still court it, might be appropriate. Why does it seem that some people are so lucky? Why, as Hopkins said in an early poem we covered (Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord) do sinner's ways prosper? Is there such a thing as luck?

The poem points out that the things we carry for luck are a bit odd. I'm not the first one to observe that the rabbit's foot people carry for luck was not particularly lucky for the rabbit. The poem illustrates our delicate balance of believing in luck and yet, not totally believing in it. If we believe in luck, then, conversely, we have to believe in bad luck- a sort of purposeful misfortune. Which we all do, and don't, depending on how we look at it and how we deal with it.

You may think you are immune from such magical thinking. I wonder how many times you may have promised yourself not to talk about something you were planning or someone you were interested in dating for fear of "jinxing" it? That's kind of a mental rabbit's foot, isn't it?

I think luck, like most everything else, is just perspective. When I would complain about wanting new clothes when I was in high school, my mother would take on this school-teacherish look and say pointedly, "I had no shoes and I complained, until I met a man who had no feet." To which I would reply, "Well, he didn't need the shoes then, did he?" (I was a terrible smart-ass to my mom, I've always been glad we both lived long enough for me to apologize for that. She, by the way, said the same thing happened with her and her mother.) Her point was, of course, that everything is perspective.

If "bad" luck follows you around on Friday the 13th, or seems to, well, you are actually pretty lucky. The universe has selected you, out of billions of people on the earth, as somebody deserving of time and attention and some valuable lessons. See what I mean? It's all perspective.

In the advertising and political world this perspective is used all the time as "spin." My mother, as most moms are, was a great spin "doctor." She could turn the gloomiest thing into a bit of luck. It was always a bit vexing and Pollyanna-ish but, also, I was lucky to know her and develop a bit of this talent.

Now, if all this strikes you as not facing reality, you really need to think about that word. Vladimir Nabokov said the word "reality" should always be written in quotation marks. Because it's all perspective. There is no reality- only the one you create for yourself. You are always peering out of your own windows- you cannot move outside of yourself- you are stuck with you. So luck is what you say it is.

And a lucky rock. One should always carry a lucky rock. (I'm teasing you. But I do have one.)

We've already talked about Merwin here. happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/02/number-81-ws-merwin-small-woman-on.html

Number 153: Alfred Noyes "Daddy Fell Into the Pond"

Daddy Fell Into The Pond

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.

We had nothing to do and nothing to say.

We were nearing the end of a dismal day,

And then there seemed to be nothing beyond,

Then

Daddy fell into the pond!



And everyone's face grew merry and bright,

And Timothy danced for sheer delight.

"Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!

He's crawling out of the duckweed!" Click!



Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,

And doubled up, shaking silently,

And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft,

And it sounded as if the old drake laughed.

Oh, there wasn't a thing that didn't respond

When

Daddy Fell into the pond!

--

Alfred Noyes

Hap Notes: Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) is probably familiar to you as the author of "The Highwayman." a poem that was required reading when I was in junior high. Don't know if it's taught so much today. It would be a pity if it weren't taught since it has all the elements kids like in a story: a beautiful girl, a handsome thief, sadistic bad guys, ghosts, a jealous vengeful stable boy, tragedy, fancy clothes (okay, maybe the lacy sleeves and velvet coat was only something in which I was interested.)

Noyes's dad taught Latin and Greek and he grew up in Wales. He reputedly missed a test for getting his degree at Exeter College because he was in a meeting with his publisher. He published loads of poetry over his lifetime, including a long poem which was a three book series (The Torch Bearers), a long blank verse poem on Sir Francis Drake and poems on Robin Hood and much, much more.

The BBC did a poll in 1995 of Britain's favorite (excuse me, favourite) poems and Noyes' Highwayman was listed as 15th. Curious about the 14 ahead of him?

Here's the list:

15:Alfred Noyes - The Highwayman

14:William Henry Davies - Leisure

13:Dylan Thomas - Fern Hill

12:Thomas Gray - Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

11:Christina Rossetti - Remember

10:William Butler Yeats - He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

9:John Keats - Ode To A Nightingale

8:Wilfred Owen - Dulce Et Decorum

7:William Butler Yeats - The Lake Of Innisfree

6:John Keats - To Autumn

5:William Wordsworth - The Daffodils

4:Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning

3:Walter De La Mare - The Listeners

2:Alfred, Lord Tennyson - The Lady Of Shallott

1:Rudyard Kipling - If

Noyes was capable of light verse as today's poem illustrates (note how Noyes gardener, sort of like the stable boy in "The Highwayman" is a somewhat interesting side character.) He wrote books and short stories, and, in fact, may have been the first author to use a "doomsday device" in a novel (which is a pretty common plot for current movies and most comic books.)

Here's a good Noyes quote. Noyes was a pacifist but before America's involvement in WWI he said: "If the people can't be worked up to the stage where they will be willing to ignore private interests for a while, we may as well devote ourselves to the philosophy of the expression "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

You can find more Noyes here: www.poemhunter.com/alfred-noyes/

Here's an audio of "The Highwayman" : www.youtube.com/watch?v=99UH0JB7m5A&feature=related

Number 152: Susan Meyers "Mother, Washing Dishes"

Mother, Washing Dishes

She rarely made us do it— 

we’d clear the table instead—so my sister and I teased

that some day we’d train our children right

and not end up like her, after every meal stuck 

with red knuckles, a bleached rag to wipe and wring.

The one chore she spared us: gummy plates 

in water greasy and swirling with sloughed peas, 

globs of egg and gravy.

Or did she guard her place 

at the window? Not wanting to give up the gloss

of the magnolia, the school traffic humming.

Sunset, finches at the feeder. First sightings

of the mail truck at the curb, just after noon, 

delivering a note, a card, the least bit of news.

--Susan Meyers

Hap Notes: In spite of the invention of the dishwasher (the dishwasher has gone through many different types since the late 1800s but they were fairly common in homes by the 1970s), I don't know how many people actually use them. They are water and energy efficient but they don't seem to work as well as a scrubby sponge and some hot water in the sink. I don't think I am unusual in washing my dishes by hand. Dishwashing liquid maintains brisk sales.

A window over the kitchen sink, at least when I was a kid, was a big selling point for a house, seeing as how one would spend a good deal of time there, peeling vegetables and washing dishes and getting water. I've lived in homes and apartments without a window over the kitchen sink but there's a dull, blocked, almost brutal feel about staring at a wall while one does dishes. My sister and I always did the dishes and there was no window over the sink. My mom put up a little curio shelf over the sink but it's just not the same as being able to gaze out the window.

Meyers' poem has two (at the very least) interesting things to ponder. First, how the poet and her sister say they would train their children to do the dishes so they will not end up like mom with the red knuckles from kitchen work and the dishwater filled with the bits and pieces of the meal's endings on the plates. There's a reversal in this poem, then, when the poet figures out why mom would want to do the dishes. I suppose I should mention that a "dish rag" was more often used than a sponge years ago, and instead of "Scotchbrite" there were Brillo pads and steel wool.

For some reason doing the dishes is one of the foulest chores of childhood (especially at my house. My dad, a who did his share of dishes while serving in the Navy, ran the water for us to insure it was hot enough and he had a specific order in which the dishes must be done: glassware, silverware, plates, change the water to scalding hot again, serving dishes, pots and pans. We hated doing the dishes and the water was so hot my sister and I would use a drinking glass to reverse-telescope in the foamy water so as not to handle the hot silverware for too long before throwing it into the hot rinse water.)

Secondly, there's an interesting phrase in the poem that touches on something about the kitchen window- the poet's mother's "guarding" of her place at the window. Not only is it the place where she can look out and dream but it's a place from which you can see the world, the helm of the house, so to speak, at least in the poet's home where one can see the school buses and the mailman. The vantage point of the window is a place to see the beauty and regular humming of the world around her as she works. It's a poignant look at how women made an advantage of their often difficult house work as well as a charming feel of all the "machinery" of life whirring along as one does their job.

My mother's hands, when I was growing up, in spite of my sister and I doing the dishes, were always a bit red and rough and slightly redolent of chopped onion when she would sit on the edge of the bed and tuck us in at night. I loved that smell. And you know, I still do the dishes in that specific order. We learn things as we get older that change our perspective on what it means to be an adult. In Meyer's poem today, she figures out something about her mom that she would never have understood as a child.

We have already talked about Meyers here: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-129-susan-meyers-hat-of-many.html

Number 151: Stanley Kunitz "Hornworm: Summer Reverie" and"Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation"

Hornworm: Summer Reverie

Here in caterpillar country
I learned how to survive
by pretending to be a dragon.
See me put on that look
of slow and fierce surprise
when I lift my bulbous head
and glare at an intruder.
Nobody seems to guess
how gentle I really am,
content most of the time
simply to disappear
by melting into the scenery.
Smooth and fatty and long,
with seven white stripes
painted on either side
and a sharp little horn for a tail,
I lie stretched out on a leaf,
pale green on my bed of green,
munching, munching.

--Stanley Kunitz

Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation

Since that first morning when I crawled
into the world, a naked grubby thing,
and found the world unkind,
my dearest faith has been that this
is but a trial: I shall be changed.
In my imaginings I have already spent
my brooding winter underground,
unfolded silky powdered wings, and climbed
into the air, free as a puff of cloud
to sail over the steaming fields,
alighting anywhere I pleased,
thrusting into deep tubular flowers.

It is not so: there may be nectar
in those cups, but not for me.
All day, all night, I carry on my back
embedded in my flesh, two rows
of little white cocoons,
so neatly stacked
they look like eggs in a crate.
And I am eaten half away.

If I can gather strength enough
I'll try to burrow under a stone
and spin myself a purse
in which to sleep away the cold;
though when the sun kisses the earth
again, I know I won't be there.
Instead, out of my chrysalis
will break, like robbers from a tomb,
a swarm of parasitic flies,
leaving my wasted husk behind.

Sir, you with the red snippers
in your hand, hovering over me,
casting your shadow, I greet you,
whether you come as an angel of death
or of mercy. But tell me,
before you choose to slice me in two:
Who can understand the ways
of the Great Worm in the Sky?

-- Stanley Kunitz

Hap Notes: Kunitz, in addition to being a poet, was a patient and observant gardener. I posted both of his hornworm poems to show both this and how perspective plays into the poetic observation.

The summer hornworm poem is an observer imagining the monologue for a hornworm to be a bit more patiently playful and contented. The second hornworm poem indicates a consciousness of a God and the facts of natural life. I put them together because we rarely see them that way (except in Kunitz's Collected Poems) and the first one takes a bit of the sting out of the second one. Conversely, the second one makes the first one a bit more poignant.

The tomato hornworm (which is what all the pictures are and the moth the hornworm will become) can be infected with the parasitic eggs of the braconid wasp which feed on the host worm, feeding on it until it is just an empty husk of a creature. Most gardeners find it advantageous to leave a hornworm with parasites alone because the eggs hatch into wasps which are not dangerous to their plants and breed more wasps which kill more hornworms. Hornworms have a voracious appetite for leaves.

It's one of the few examples where parasites kill their hosts, usually parasitism is more of a complementary relationship with the parasite providing something to the host because if the host dies, so will the parasite.

So what are the worms, or rather what is Kunitz, saying about all this? Well, I've read analyses which claim the autumn worm is a bitter pronouncement about our beliefs in god. Kunitz himself once commented that "The God I believe in doesn't exist." (You are going to have to think on that one a bit since it's not atheism he's claiming in that statement.)

Even Darwin had trouble with the hornworm and wondered how a beneficent God could have created the wasp to feed off a living organism. (I guess he never ate meat? As a matter of fact this is an issue of some contention. Darwin wrote that he thought a vegetarian diet was best but there's no evidence to suggest that he was one himself. More controversy-- thanks Charles. We all need to be kept on the edge of intellectual uncertainty and he's certainly helped with that.)

Notice in the autumn poem how the hornworm knows that the gardener is not a god but merely some messenger. This, in itself says something. Stanley is not letting the god issue off the hook by making the worm see man as a god i.e. as though "primitive" weaker, smaller creatures see bigger more powerful creatures as gods. No, there's a Great Worm in the sky because gods are created in our own image- man is just a messenger of that worm god. Maybe.

The issue in this poem is not whether hornworms "dream" of becoming moths. Our narrator moth is saying something about the human condition because our narrator is really Kunitz, a messenger. Maybe of that Great Worm in the sky.

It's worth noting that someone of Kunitz' jewish background (or anyone really), post WWII, would call god the Great Worm.

Here's where we have talked about Kunitz before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-20-stanley-kunitz-portrait.html