Number 199: Sarah Teasedale "Moonlight"

Moonlight

It will not hurt me when I am old,

A running tide where moonlight burned

Will not sting me like silver snakes;

The years will make me sad and cold,

It is the happy heart that breaks.

The heart asks more than life can give,

When that is learned, then all is learned;

The waves break fold on jewelled fold,

But beauty itself is fugitive,

It will not hurt me when I am old.

-- Sarah Teasdale

Hap Notes: I have a bit of a tough itinerary planned for this week so I thought we'd start out gently. This Teasdale poem, as simple as it seems is saying something far darker than just the memory of past beauty and life is fleeting.

Is she trying to convince us or herself that memories of beauty will not hurt? And isn't it her realization that "the heart asks more than life can give" the idea that may hurt most of all?

While it's true that memories cannot physically come up and slap you in the face, how does one describe the hurt that is inside of the heart? How can one's heart, happy or no, be hurt? What are we really talking about when we say "the heart?" It's not the bi-valved blood pumping organ in our chests that feels the sting of memory-- so what is it?

There is a wistful beauty in the way the constant sea keeps coming up to the shore and the way life keeps going on, springing anew, changing. It will not hurt you when you are old but it does do something to a thoughtful person. What is it?

This is a pensive Teasdale thinking about her old age long before it will come. In many ways it is the sad imaginings of what it is like to be old before one gets there. In reality, old age is not nearly as "sad and cold" for some as Teasdale imagines it. Much of what she is saying is what she is feeling in her youth about about something that is already hurting her which she predicts will fade in time to a sad coldness.

Speaking strictly from my own agedness, I can argue that life is richer and sweeter as one ages regardless of what beauty and heartbreak one has seen in their lifetime. The only thing that will leave you sad and cold in your old age is NOT feeling the way Teasdale describes in her youth in this poem.

Your heart is not glass (no matter Debbie Harry's [Blondie] song to the contrary) and if it does figuratively "break" now and again, it is, as Woody Allen said "a resilient little muscle." You have to keep "breaking" your heart to feel truly alive, otherwise you will be sad and cold in your old age.

But the poem does strike the right note for a loving sorrow, yes? Moonlight brings this out in us, doesn't it?

Here's where we've talked about Teasdale before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/05/number-160-sara-teasdale-there-will.html

Number 198: Winfield Townley Scott "If All The Unplayed Pianos"

If All The Unplayed Pianos

If all the unplayed pianos in America—

The antimacassared uprights in old ladies’ parlors

In the storehourses the ones that were rented for vaudeville

The ones where ill fame worsened and finally died

The ones too old for Sunday School helplessly dusty

The ones too damp at the beach and too dry in the mountains

The ones mothers used to play on winter evenings

The ones silenced because of the children growing away—

Resounded suddenly all together from coast to coast:

Untuned joy like a fountain jetted everywhere for a moment:

The whole nation burst to untapped, untrammeled song:

It would make—in short—a most satisfactory occasion,

A phenomenon which the scientists could never explain.

-- Winfield Townley Scott

Hap Notes: If I had the power to revive the career of an under appreciated poet, Winfield Townley Scott (1910-1968) would be at the top of my list (second would be Kenneth Fearing.) It's true that his poetry is often merely good (which sounds like enough to me.) He is not often taught in schools or universities. A contemporary with extraordinary talents like Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, Scott's work is often a momentary revelation rather than a magnum opus.

Scott grew up on the East Coast, graduated from Brown (not particularly a "poet's college" especially in his era) and went on to write for the Providence Journal. He wrote book reviews and became editor of its weekly book page. The book page was a revelation. Highly lauded, it had no equal outside of New York City. Scott was a great admirer of Edwin Arlington Robinson whom he met in his college years. Scott wrote thoughtful reviews and essays for the paper.

His poetry was often published in Poetry Magazine and he won a Shelley Award in 1939. His published journal, A Dirty Hand, has also been highly lauded. He moved to New Mexico to concentrate on writing and he loved the geography and beauty of the state. He committed suicide after a domestic dispute in 1968. There's a biography of Scott, Poet in America: Winfield Townley Scott by Scott Donaldson, which is supposed to be extremely good.

Scott never thought himself to be good enough as a poet. I disagree. I daresay you will, too.

In today's poem, it's a delightful idea to think of all those tinny and untuned pianos breaking into spontaneous song isn't it? But there's a bit more to it than that. I think America is full of the under-used unappreciated and talented (or potentially talented or those who are potentially yearning to express something regardless of "talent"). The odd music that would result from all those pianos is also a song of those who sang once and are then forgotten.

We've talked about the antimacassar before, do you remember (hint: Lewis Carroll) and it really just means "doily" in this poem.

I became familiar with Scott's work through an anthology I bought in my college years, The Voice That Is Great Within Us. Edited by Hayden Carruth, this book is full of remarkable gems of poetry and my copy is beat-up and yellowed and much beloved.

Instead of a quote, let me give you another Scott poem which, again, I think shows his gentle genius:


The Child's Morning

Gangway for violets,
Old snow in the corner.
Sun after a rise of rain
Over cuttlebone cloud.
Sun in the brook running
Green with watercress
Sun on the spade—
We shovel out crocuses.
Up the concrete walk
Under surf of rollerskates
The hail of jacks,
Kiss-click of aggies.
We summon with jumpropes
Sap in the trees,
With bat-knock of ball
And the thudding glove.
That clang of schoolbells
We answer with answers:
Tall immaculate silence
Of colored kites.

--Winfield Townley Scott

Number 197: Geroge Starbuck "Sonnet with a Different Letter at the End of Every Line"

Sonnet with a Different Letter at the End of Every Line

O for a muse of fire, a sack of dough,
Or both! O promissory notes of woe!
One time in Santa Fe N.M.
Ol' Winfield Townley Scott and I ... But whoa.

One can exert oneself, ff ,
Or architect a heaven like Rimbaud,
Or if that seems, how shall I say, de trop ,
One can at least write sonnets, a propos
Of nothing save the do-re-mi-fa-sol
Of poetry itself. Is not the row
Of perfect rhymes, the terminal bon mot,
Obeisance enough to the Great O?

"Observe," said Chairman Mao to Premier Chou,
"On voyage à Parnasse pour prendre les eaux.
On voyage comme poisson, incog."

-- George Starbuck

Hap Notes: So much is packed into this clever little poem that I sometimes forget to appreciate the sheer artistry of Starbuck. Once again, he's so clever here that we forget to take the poem as seriously as we should. He's saying something here about art, politics and poetry in addition to the extraordinary cleverness. Starbuck was a well read and highly intelligent man and whatever we find in the poem, it's a good bet that he slipped it in there on purpose.

First off notice that each line of the poem starts out with 'O', then notice that his rhyming sounds all sound a bit like "oh" then notice his clever use of abbreviations and short-hand to get his "different" letter for each ending. Pretty clever stuff. But there's so much more. Let's start at the beginning, eh? (And I'm quite sure I'm going to miss stuff, but I''ll try to be thorough.)

"O for a muse of fire" is the beginning lines of the Prologue of Shakespeare's Henry V where he bades the audience to use their imagination to create the scenes in France, the horses, etc. He and Starbuck are both telling us to uh, 'think outside the box' (hate that phrase but it does nicely here.)

The "notes of woe" is from a Lord Byron poem called, " Away, Away Ye Notes of Woe." In the poem he talks of music he once loved that now fill him with sorrow when he thinks on those brighter days.

Santa Fe, N.M. is, of course, Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is where the poet Winfield Townley Scott is buried (we'll get to his poems soon). Scott committed suicide.

"ff" is the musical notation fortissimo - very loud.

Rimbaud (pronounced "Rimbo" - sorta) is a poet we talked about when we discussed Verlaine, a gifted poet with a seedy side, remember?

De Trop (dee tro) is a French phrase for "a bit too much". Bon Mot (bone mo) is literally "good word" and means clever phrase.

The great O is (I believe) Orpheus, the legendary Greek poet, singer and story teller who was said to have charmed even stones with his musical verses. ( I don't know if Starbuck was thinking of the orgasmic reference we use but it certainly fits here.) We will talk more about Orpheus later this year. (The masthead today is "Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld" by Corot. If you want more stuff on Orpheus and Eurydice here's a spot to check: www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/eurydice/eurydicemyth.html )

Premiere Chou (Zhou in the history books now) was the first premier in the peoples republic of China under Mao Zedung.

The French phrase means "they travel to Parnassus to take the waters,/ they travel as fish." Taking the waters is what people used to do (and may still, I don't know) to take the curative effects of natural springs. Parnassus in Greek mythology is a mountain which was the home of the muses and sacred to Apollo. It's worth noting that the "Parnassian" poets in France in the 1800s were devoted to formal perfection and less romantic "inspirations."

"Incog" is a truncation of the word incognito.

Got all that? Now put it together. I may have missed some stuff– I'm not even half as smart as Starbuck. The poem is great fun (okay, it is for me anyway) but there's some serious stuff being said about poetry. By the by, Starbuck's final little joke on us all is that this is NOT a sonnet – it has 15 (instead of 14) lines.

It's very funny that the two Chinese communist leaders disguise themselves as fish to "take the waters" eh? What else does that say?

I'm going to let you ponder this poem a while. Relax– don't force it, just let it come to you.

Here's where we have talked about Starbuck before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-112-george-starbuck-sonnet-in.html

and here: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-114-browning-starbuck-and-bierce.html

It's Saturday so here's a few cartoons too!

First Betty Boop and the awesome Cab Calloway: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaZOXF83zBg

Then we have a great little tune by Bernie Cummins & His New Yorker Hotel Orchestra - Minnie The Mermaid, I guess because I was thinking of traveling incognito as a fish. My mom used to sing this to me and I always loved it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GgcW5VErLc

Here's a little fish who didn't want to go to school: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzy9C9fAJOg

Finally, a little sampling of Dr. Orpheus from one of my favorite current cartoon series "The Venture Brothers": www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkWD50Pz7sk

Number 196: Robert Louis Stevenson "Summer Sun"

Summer Sun

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose:
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

Hap Notes: I love this charming poem of Stevenson's but, in all honesty, I posted it because it's my birthday and it's an enchanting thought for the day. Also, my hands are already sticky from eating so much cold watermelon for breakfast because on my birthday, if I can afford it, I only eat what I really love. One birthday I ate a whole jar of maraschino cherries for breakfast – probably not my best idea ever.

I hope the summer sun is shining on you today and if it is not, there's always this Stevenson poem to shine on you instead.

Here's where we have talked about Stevenson before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-21-robert-louis-stevenson-after.html

The Renoir in the masthead is a particular favorite of mine. It's at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. and it's so awesome in person you have to sit down for a minute to catch your breath. Up close it's a tangled marvel, far away, the glassware sparkles in the sun. Here's the whole painting and an explanation of who's who in the picture: www.phillipscollection.org/collection/boating/whoswho.aspx

Number 195: Dorothy Parker "Ninon De Lenclos, On Her Last Birthday"

Ninon De Lenclos, On Her Last Birthday

So let me have the rouge again,
And comb my hair the curly way.
The poor young men, the dear young men
They'll all be here by noon today.

And I shall wear the blue, I think-
They beg to touch its rippled lace;
Or do they love me best in pink,
So sweetly flattering the face?

And are you sure my eyes are bright,
And is it true my cheek is clear?
Young what's-his-name stayed half the night;
He vows to cut his throat, poor dear!

So bring my scarlet slippers, then,
And fetch the powder-puff to me.
The dear young men, the poor young men-
They think I'm only seventy!

-- Dorothy Parker

Hap Notes: It's not surprising that Dorothy Parker would know about the famous French courtesan and wit, Mademoiselle Ninon De Lenclos (1620-1705.) They had a bit in common both being writers, wits and independent women. De Lenclos really takes the cake, though. She was an extraordinary woman in every sense of the words "extraordinary" and "woman." In Parker's poem she is celebrating her 85th birthday, still as vital and as sexually active as ever.

As you can see from her pictures, it was not her great beauty that attracted men, although it didn't hurt none to look at her. She was a wit, an intelligence and she understood how to make love and felt no compunctions talking about sex. She is one of the finest examples of the idea of the brain being the most important sexual organ. Although, she certainly was not above taking a lover based on lust.

A woman of independent means, she also had very rich and famous lovers: Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, Gaston de Coligny, and François, duc de La Rouchefoucauld. It is said that Cardinal Richelieu offered her 50 thousand crowns for one night in bed. She took the money and sent a friend in her place.

De Lenclos believed that one could be a good person and still enjoy the pleasures of life. She was well versed in philosophy and literature and her salon was THE place to talk and exchange ideas and flirt. She was friends with Racine and was one of the leading critics of the arts.

She said, “I notice that the most frivolous things are charged up to the account of women, and that men have reserved to themselves the right to all the essential qualities; from this moment I will be a man.” She lived with those rights and preserved her femininity too. She took lovers, young and old, throughout her entire life with nary a pause.

She is highly revered in France as a woman of wit, wisdom and expertise in love.

If you would like to read some of her work it is available here: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10665

Here is a book on Ninon if you'd like to read more about her: aelliott.com/reading/ninon/

Here is a verse Ninon De Lenclos wrote at the end of her life:

"I put your consolations by,

And care not for the hopes you give:

Since I'm old enough to die,

Why should I longer wish to live?"

Here is where we have talked about Parker before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/03/number-105-dorothy-parker-ballade-of.html

P.S. All pics are paintings and miniatures of De Lenclos – she inspired dozens of portraits.

Number 194: Rainer Maria Rilke "Archaic Torso of Apollo"

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

--Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Hap Notes: Rilke (1875-1926) is one of those translation problems we speak of so often when looking at poetry originally written in a foreign tongue. I have nits to pick with Mitchell's translation of this poem but, in the final analysis, I still find his translation the most compelling so we will use this and I'll add a few notes which may or may not clarify the poem for you.

First off, I think the nicest thing one can say about Rilke is that he was consumed by art. He was sensitive, a bit sickly and he wandered Europe restlessly. He grew up in Prague, was sent to military school (which he hated so much he still reviled the experience as an older adult) and had what seems to be the European requisite love affair with an older married woman. He married a student of Auguste Rodin, Clara Westhoff. Here is where art joins once again with literature. Rodin becomes a mentor and friend to Rilke and this augmented his talents tremendously.

Rilke was asked to write a biography of Rodin. He studied him, wrote the biography and ended up being a secretary to the sculptor. Rodin taught Rilke how to observe. Rodin sent him to the zoo (hence the panther poem we'll get to another day), He sent him to museums. He stressed what we would call the "close reading" of objects. All this led Rilke to his "thing" poems, poems in which he tries to give the essence of something. This takes us directly to our poem.

Let's first remember something that rarely gets mentioned in explications and essays on this poem: Apollo was the sun god, the god of light, often called "born of the wolf." In Latin literature he is called Phoebus – radiant. Now let's go to the poem.

This statue that Rilke describes here does not have a head, it's been broken off and all that is left is the torso. If that "eyes like ripening fruit" thing bothers you, well, it bothers me, too. The German "augenapfel," means "eyeball" but is literally translated as "eye apple." Mitchell's translation at least avoids the mistake of putting too much emphasis on the apple part but my translation (of course, all of us who can read a little German translate this poem and mangle it; I'm one of many) of this phrase is not ripening (which makes a good pun with "eye-apple") but "maturing eyes." I can't say that I think Rilke is a jolly punster in this line with the ripening apples as some have suggested. If he is, it's much more of a pun like an English one on "creaking joints" on the body i.e. we don't usually associate hardware with the joints when we say that phrase (even though it's in there) anymore than the eye apples "ripening" are actually talking about fruit. It's implied without being too "punny."

Okay, the upshot of this is that the missing head is stone, just like the rest of him. Rilke is saying we cannot see the aged eyes of the sculpture. This is important to the impact of the poem. The poet says the torso is still full of light, even though Apollo's gaze is not literally present, the torso gleams, is incandescent with light and life, it is still as though Apollo is looking at you. The "smile" is the line on the lower midriff which goes down into the pubic area, it has the look of a calm smile.

Rilke is describing the luminous beauty of a thing that strikes your heart so vividly it seems as though it is looking at you, through you. You know the feeling of seeing a piece of artwork (or maybe hearing a song or reading a poem) and it slashes through you, makes you see things anew? It reveals something in you. You cannot take back your life from it because it has marked you with that initial feeling. It is an epiphany; this new experience changes you.

This all happens in a flash. And Mitchell's translation actually does this to you in the final two lines of the poem. It drops you onto a new plane of existence. Everything you are is transformed. Your life will never be the same. What do you do with this (pardon my pun) eye-opening inspiration? Your life is altered. You must change your life.

Here's the original German if you'd care to take a stab at translating it:

Archaischer Torso Apollos

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfelreiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein enstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle;

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.

Here's a good Rilke quote:

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

and another:

"Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write."

And one more (I could do this all day, sorry): "Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life"

You can find more Rilke here: www.poemhunter.com/rainer-maria-rilke/

Number 193: Tennyson "The Brook"

The Brook

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson


Hap Notes: I had something entirely different planned for today, but I'd forgotten that it's the Summer Solstice and I yearn for something a bit greener and watery to celebrate it. It's a good evening to read Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, eat some strawberries and make a dandelion chain to wear in your hair. Or you could just read this Tennyson poem that seems to use every watery modifier to bring a brook to life with words. (You could do the other stuff, too...)

I'll admit I know this poem from the Thurber cartoon I read as a youth. I wonder how many other people got inspired to read classic older poetry by reading James Thurber? Odd thought, that.

Some quick vocabulary: A coot is a bird. When people call someone an "old coot" that is what they are actually referring to whether they know it or not. Probably from its often bent posture it looks like a crabby aged person. Hern is a truncation of heron commonly used in Tennyson's time. A thorpe is a tiny village, a grayling is a fish. I think that should do it – the other words are pretty easily understood. (The coot and heron are pictured in the masthead. The Thurber cartoon is next to the poem.)

Now jump into this poem like a happy otter.

This brook gets every word Tennyson can throw at it to illustrate its rushing babbling meandering. It sparkles, bickers, slips, slides, chatters, bubbles, babbles, winds, steals, murmurs, lingers, glooms, glances, loiters and curves. I suppose you get that it is traveling along at a good pace to join up with a bigger river, yes?

The best part of the poem, to me, is how the poem is like the brook. It catches you up in its motion, you are compelled to move forward with it, watching the banks with its towns and flora and fauna. Now almost anyone can write a short poem about a babbling brook but look how long he keeps it going, making the poem into a brook that goes on. He's a Mozart with sustained word passages. There's a pride in that repeated "men may come and men may go" too, eh? Long after Tennyson and the reader is gone, this brook (or maybe poem?) will keep right on traveling.

Happy Solstice!

Here's where we've talked about Tennyson before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/02/number-73-alfred-lord-tennyson-eagle.html