Number 295: Humberrt Wolfe "The Grey Squirrel"

The Grey Squirrel

Like a small grey
coffee-pot,
sits the squirrel.
He is not

all he should be,
kills by dozens
trees, and eats
his red-brown cousins.

The keeper on the
other hand,
who shot him, is
a Christian, and

loves his enemies,
which shows
the squirrel was not
one of those.

-- Humbert Wolfe

Hap Notes: While the grey squirrel does not actually eat the red squirrel, Humbert Wolfe's (1885-1940) short poem certainly exposes several prejudices in a pithy poem.

The grey squirrel population in Great Britain has been a sore point for the last decade or so. They were introduced to England and Europe early in the 19th century (from America, I believe – remember how the Victorians loved their animal "oddities") and they have taken a foothold across the pond that has contributed to the dwindling numbers of England's native, and smaller (and very pretty), red squirrel. The grey is also responsible for a bit of tree damage and his right to proliferate is hotly debated in Britain.

The world is full of cautionary tales about introducing a non-native species to a foreign place. All Aussies can tell tales of the cane toad, imported from Hawaii to take care of a beetle problem in 1935. Everyone in the American South can tell tales of kudzu, a plant that was promoted for planting to prevent soil erosion in the 1940s. Farmers were actually paid by the acre to plant the stuff. Georgia is now covered with the stuff, which looks amazingly green but folks joke to "close your windows" if they don't want the stuff growing through their homes.

Humbert Wolfe was born in Italy. His parents moved to England when he was very young. He was schooled in England and converted to Christianity from Judaism, although his Jewish roots were always a part of his consciousness. He was a noted civil servant who worked for the Board of Trade and, later, the Board of Labour in England and was rewarded for these posts with royal orders both CBE and CB. (Always wanted to know what these mean? Go here: www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/HnrSystm.html )

Wolfe was a very popular poet in the 1920s. He wrote a couple dozen books the subjects of which include verses, criticism, librettos and translations of Heinrich Heine (German poet), Edmond Fleg (French poet) and Eugene Heltai (Hungarian author) Some of his verses have been set to music by Gustav Holst. Here's a small sampling of the music: www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=4365 .

In today's poem we are faced with how we view ourselves as compared to animals and how many people view Christianity, as either hypocritical or defensively justified (or both.) It is the phrase "He is not all he should be" that merits some meditation. Is comparing him to a coffee pot (which is figuratively apt- see masthead pic today) making him a "thing" rather than a creature? How does that relate to the "Christian" point of view expressed in the poem.

You can find more Wolfe here: www.poemhunter.com/humbert-wolfe/

Number 294: Adelaide Crapsey "November Night"

November Night

Listen...

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.

-- Adelaide Crapsey

Hap Notes: Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) invented the cinequain, the form of poem featured today. The cinequain has five lines (hence its name) with a differing syllable count for each line. The first line has two, the second has four, the third has six, the fourth has eight and the last goes back to two again. She developed the poem based on her knowledge of Japanese haiku and tanka. She always titled the poems which gives the verse an extra line.

You may be familiar (most everyone who attended grade school in the U.S. within the last 30 years is) with the didactic cinequain, which is the fancy name for the poem your teacher made you write in the third grade. It follows the following order: the first line is a one-word title, the subject of the poem; the second line is two adjectives describing that title; the third line is a three word phrase about the subject; the fourth line is four words about the writer's feelings related to that subject; and the fifth line is a single word synonym or a repetition of line one. It is based on word count rather than syllables. (i.e. "Snowflakes/Icy white/Light as feathers/Dancing through my heart/Snowflakes".) Remember?

Crapsey was born in Rochester, New York, went to prep school in Kenosha, Wisconsin and then went to Vassar where she was a whiz, both the class poet and editor of the Vassarian. Her family life was fraught with difficulties. She was from a family of eight children and one of her brothers and one of her sisters died young. Her father was an Episcopal priest who gave a lecture stressing the humanity of Jesus and was subsequently tried for heresy and expelled from the ministry. It is said that he was tried as an exemplar to discourage other free thinkers and reformers from polluting the church. Adelaide attended the trials with her father.

She, also, had poor heath and died of tuberculosis when she was only 36. A slim volume of her poetry, Verses, was published after her death. She also wrote a book, A Study in English Metrics, in which she analyzed and attempted to classify poets based on their use of syllables as a consequence of their particular styles. She taught at both her alma mater prep school and at Smith College.

Carl Sandburg was responsible for much of the continued interest in Crapsey's work and the cinequain. Here is a bonus poem since I dropped the ball yesterday (I'm doing Nanowrimo this year: www.nanowrimo.org/ – it's good practice to try to write 50,000 words in a month. Not a good excuse but it's the only one I have.)

Here's Sandburg's poem about today's poet.

Adelaide Crapsey

AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July,
I read your heart in a book.

And your mouth of blue pansy—I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered.

And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held there listening to the sea, the great naked sea shouldering a load of salt.

And the blue pansy mouth sang to the sea:
Mother of God, I’m so little a thing,
Let me sing longer,
Only a little longer.

And the sea shouldered its salt in long gray combers hauling new shapes on the beach sand.

--Carl Sandburg

You can find more Crapsey here: www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/adelaide-crapsey

(And, yeah, it's a tough name to shoulder for anyone, let alone a poet.)

Number 293: Thomas Hood "No!"

No!

No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--
No road--no street--no "t'other side this way"--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--
No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em--
No knowing 'em!
No traveling at all--no locomotion--
No inkling of the way--no notion--
"No go" by land or ocean--
No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No Park, no Ring, no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds--
November!

-- Thomas Hood

Hap Notes: One can't help liking Thomas Hood (1799-1845) even though (or maybe because) he littered his work with puns and odd rhymes. During my column writing days I mentioned to a friend who was on the staff of the American Scholar (I was not) that I was sort of a "humorist" and he told me one should never limit the arrows in one's quiver by such a narrow description. This is what actually happened to Hood. Known as a humorist, he could never shake the description consequently his poetry never got the serious scrutiny of his contemporaries. (Although, let's face it; his contemporaries were pretty extraordinary writers whose work would overshadow all but the very best poets: Keats, Hunt, Coleridge, Tennyson, de Quincy, Lamb, Shelley, Thackeray and Clare just to name a few.)

He was born in London. His dad was a bookseller. Hood had some education and was the favored student of a private tutor. He worked in a counting house (Hap- what the hell is a counting house? Well, it's pretty much an accountant's office.), he didn't care much for that and he started to learn engraving but found he was not suited to the work. He suffered from ill health and was, throughout his life, afflicted with wearying weakness. (Side note; Everybody, almost to a man, suffered from ill health in England at this time- one supposes it was a combination of breeding, weather, water quality, sanitation practices, food standards and the burgeoning industrial revolution but, it's just an educated guess.) In fact, his health was so bad he moved to an aunt's home in Scotland where he took walks, ate healthy food and got healthy. He started writing poetry there.

He submitted articles and poems to small local papers in the area and eventually felt well enough to go back to England and re-start his engraving work. Hood was a good and clever illustrator but, again, he lived in a time of extraordinary illustrators; John Leech, George Cruikshank and William Harvey. Hood became the editor of the London Magazine and eventually started his own humor magazine, Hood's, and was a contributor to the quintessential British humor/current events magazine, Punch. It was in Punch where Hood's "Song of the Shirt" appeared, anonymously. The poem is a moving tribute to the poor working class and the poem was a smash hit (if such a thing can be said of a poem.) It was re-printed dozens of times on prints, as a pamphlet and even on handkerchiefs. Here it is, if you'd like to read it (and it's well worth your time): www.victorianweb.org/authors/hood/shirt.html .

Hood's work has its high points and its low points. In "Bridge of Sighs" he laments the drowning suicide of a young woman but one is never clear if it is supposed to be taken seriously with stanzas like this: "Still, for all slips of hers,/One of Eve's family—/Wipe those poor lips of hers/Oozing so clammily." Yeesh.

Then, too, as a famous punster, his poem "Faithless Sally Brown" is full of jokes and puns which were popular at the time but are sometimes somewhat lost on our era. The best of these, I think, is the final verse, spelling out the end of a sailing man who loved Sally, and reads: "His death, which happen'd in his berth,/At forty-odd befell:/They went and told the sexton, and/The sexton toll'd the bell." Get the jokes/puns, here? (death birth, told tolled. You get it.)

He had a few books published, often with other writers as with his book "Whimsicalities" – the masthead pictures show some of this book. He loved jokes, puns and saw the humor in most all situations. Wrote some fine poetry. Died fairly young–at 46. He was warmly remembered by his friends, which seems to me to be the mark of a fine human.

I suppose today's poem needs little extra explication. November in London, especially during his era, was a drab and cold and dark time. (Just a reminder that this weekend is the time change for us as well- which always makes November seem like the bringer of darkness, doesn't it?)

Here's a good quote from Hood: Hood defended his use of the puns with a couplet: "However critics may take offence,/
A double meaning has double sense."

You can find more Hood here: www.gutenberg.org/files/15652/15652-h/15652-h.htm

Number 292: Edgar Allan Poe "Ulalume"

Ulalume

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere -
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir -
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through and alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul -
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll -
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere -
Our memories were treacherous and sere, -
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!) -
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here) -
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn -
As the star-dials hinted of morn -
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn -
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said: "She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs -
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies -
To the Lethean peace of the skies -
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes -
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said: "Sadly this star I mistrust -
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Ah, hasten! -ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! -let us fly! -for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust -
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust -
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied: "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendour is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty tonight! -
See! -it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright -
We safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom -
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb -
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said: "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied: "Ulalume -Ulalume -
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere -
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed -I journeyed down here! -
That I brought a dread burden down here -
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber -
This misty mid region of Weir -
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

-- Edgar Allan Poe

Hap Notes: These gloomy verses were written by Poe expressly for recitation so if you haven't done so, go back and read it aloud. He wanted you to hear the words and their sounds– he even repeats them for dramatic effect. He's very fond of "L"s- Ulalume, Annabelle Lee, Eulalie, Lenore. It is commonly pronounced Ooh-La-Loom or Yoo-La-Loom. Gloomy sounding name, I think. Here is Jeff Buckley reading it with appropriately spooky music as a background:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VesUJqm5rss. Pretty haunting stuff.

First, let's clarify a bit about the verses before I give you my shocking interpretation of the poem (not kidding– it's an unusual one.) The poem tells the story of a guy so distraught with grief at the loss of his love that he knows neither where he is wandering nor what day it is. He wanders through a gloomy forest by a lake (he's been there before but doesn't recall this until later). The lake and forest are fictional names made up by Poe (some scholars think they are possibly named for a composer (Auber) and an artist (Weir).) He travels with Psyche who is the personification of his soul/rational consciousness.

As he walks along he sees a vision in the sky of Astarte (who in Greek mythology becomes Aphrodite and in Roman mythology is Venus) a goddess of fertility, sexuality and, often, war. One of her symbols is the lion (although the pathway to which she beckons in the sky is probably the constellation Leo). The "lethean" peace refers to the mythic waters of the river Lethe and its powers to make one forget if one drinks from its waters. Astarte is seductive and lovely but Psyche is wary and begs him to go away from this place and this vision. It's interesting to note that Poe felt his rational/soul is this lovely goddess with wings who was, in mythology, the wife of Cupid after a great deal of trouble with-- hmmm-- Venus. Although, Psyche is a generally accepted word for the soul/companion in most explications of this poem.

Let's get out of that tangled forest and go on. As the speaker of the poem walks down the path urged by Astarte, he comes to the door of a tomb and realizes with horror that it is the tomb of his dead love Ulalume that he laid to rest a year ago to the day. All his memories come flooding back and he realizes he has been down this path before, by this lake, when he buried her the year before. The horror, the horror.

Except....

(Don't read the next part of my explication if you like the idea of a fella so stricken with grief over the loss of his beloved. Seriously. Don't. You'll just hate me and I'll feel bad that I ruined something you loved.)

I have this feeling every time I read this poem that the speaker isn't telling us something very important about his grief. He keeps referring to his feelings as volcanic and lava like in arctic cold settings. Maybe it's that word "treacherous" and the way he calls the body of his love a "dread burden" that strikes me as odd but it seems as though the speaker in the poem may have been responsible in some way for the death of Ulalume. He seems, at first, very taken with Astarte, a goddess of sensuality, beauty and, yes, sex. His "good girl" conscious tells him to get away from her. I get the feeling that this guy is afraid of the sexuality of women and wants them to be like his Psyche. Ah, but he's seduced by the sensual. So, can you see where this fella could be the kind of guy who loved a sensual, sexual woman and then maybe, killed her from his own twisted view of love and sex? And then, wandered around in delirious grief for his misdeed– because he did love her but she had power over him. And still does. And who the hell calls the body of a loved one a "dread burden"? Sounds more like a murdered corpse. Just sayin'. And maybe the tomb brings back his addled guilty memory of the dastardly deed done in a fit of passion.

I don't think Poe intended this interpretation, by the way, just telling you what I think when I read the poem. I think my version is scarier, too.

Happy Halloween, by the way. Hope you eat some candy and read more poetry (sounds like a perfect holiday to me.)

Here's where we've talked about Poe before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/10/number-287-edgar-allan-poe-raven.html

Number 291: Robert Frost "Ghost House"

Ghost House

I Dwell in a lonely house I know 

That vanished many a summer ago, 

And left no trace but the cellar walls,

And a cellar in which the daylight falls,

And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. 



O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield 

The woods come back to the mowing field;

The orchard tree has grown one copse

Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops; 

The footpath down to the well is healed.



I dwell with a strangely aching heart

In that vanished abode there far apart

On that disused and forgotten road 

That has no dust-bath now for the toad. 

Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;



The whippoorwill is coming to shout

And hush and cluck and flutter about: 

I hear him begin far enough away

Full many a time to say his say

Before he arrives to say it out. 



It is under the small, dim, summer star.

I know not who these mute folk are 

Who share the unlit place with me-- 

Those stones out under the low-limbed tree

Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. 



They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,

Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,-- 

With none among them that ever sings,

And yet, in view of how many things,

As sweet companions as might be had.

-- Robert Frost

Hap Notes: Well, I suppose everything is open to interpretation but after reading a good deal of summaries of this poem in books and online I have to point out something that I think is perfectly clear in the first two verses of this poem that each interpretation fails to see: The speaker in this poem is dead.

"I dwell" present tense. "That vanished" past tense. I guess the speaker could be living in a ruined exposed cellar next to a graveyard but this seems highly unlikely considering that Frost wrote the poems of "A Boys Will" (his first book of poem published in 1915) about New England – a place where one could not live in a wrecked open cellar for very long once the winter hit (although the poem is set in summer). The speaker is certainly giving us a metaphor for life in this poem but the word "dwell," on the surface, at least (ah yes, we'll get to the next layer in a moment), implies residency. (And remember the title of the poem.)

Now, there is another meaning to the word "dwell" which means to mentally linger, to think on – almost to obsess– about something. This has its place in this poem but not on the surface. The speaker in the poem gives us far too much information about the current state of the area for us to assume he is just "dwelling" there emotionally; the bats coming out at night, the very detailed account of a whippoorwill calling from a distance, the one dim summer star overhead. One who is merely thinking dwells ON something, not in it.

The nameless quiet folks in the graveyard have, among their number, a young girl and a boy, though none of them sing like the whippoorwill does, or speaks. Why do you think Frost says they are "tireless"? Why does he particularly point out the boy and girl?

There is a devastating loneliness in this poem; the empty ruined cellar, the one bird, the "healed" path, the one dim star. And only the bird, the living creature, tries to assert himself with his voice. And if you've ever heard a whippoorwill, you know that it's an insistent song. Here it is: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Whip-poor-will/sounds The whippoorwill is nocturnal and calls mostly at dusk so we also know this poem is set, with it's one dim star, in a gloomy sunset.

What, in this poem, is Frost saying about life and human company in this poem? What happened to the house? The speaker? Why does the speaker's heart ache? How much do we ever get to know about a person? How does this poem depict human life and its transitive frailty?

We've done a lot of Frost, here are a few of them: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-7-robert-frost-design_14.html

and happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/01/number-51-robert-frost-choose-something.html

and happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/03/number-93-robert-frost-out-out.html

Number 290: Agha Shahid Ali "The Wolf's Postscript to 'Little Red Riding Hood'"

The Wolf's Postscript to 'Little Red Riding Hood'

First, grant me my sense of history:

I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers

and a clear moral:

Little girls shouldn't wander off

in search of strange flowers,

and they mustn't speak to strangers.


And then grant me my generous sense of plot:

Couldn't I have gobbled her up

right there in the jungle?

Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?

As if I, a forest-dweller,

didn't know of the cottage

under the three oak trees

and the old woman lived there

all alone?

As if I couldn't have swallowed her years before?


And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,

now my only reputation.

But I was no child-molester
though you'll agree she was pretty.




And the huntsman:

Was I sleeping while he snipped

my thick black fur

and filled me with garbage and stones?

I ran with that weight and fell down,

simply so children could laugh

at the noise of the stones

cutting through my belly,

at the garbage spilling out

with a perfect sense of timing,

just when the tale

should have come to an end.

--Agha Shahid Ali

Hap Notes: Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001) was born in New Delhi. His father was from a Kashmir family that strongly believed in education and Ali's grandmother was one of the first women to be educated in Kashmir (side note: this is where we get the name for cashmere– from the Kashmir goats first found in the region and prized for their soft fur underlayer used for the fabric). Ali's father went to Ball State for a while and so the poet lived some of his youth in Muncie, Indiana. After his family returned to Delhi he went to universities there and returned to the U.S. for his doctorate in English at Penn State.

Ali held teaching positions at the University of Delhi, Penn State, SUNY Binghamton, Princeton University, Hamilton College, Baruch College, University of Utah, and Warren Wilson College. He is the author of a dozen books, most of them award winning poetry. He was one of the first poets to make the ghazal ( a Persian form of poetry that uses repetition, rhyme and couplets) a familiar form in the U.S.

His awards include fellowships from The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Ingram-Merrill Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation and a Pushcart Prize. He died very young, at 52, from a cancerous brain tumor.

In today's poem we see the wolf in the famous fairytale explaining, in so many words, how "bad" is a necessary part of good. There is no Jesus story without Judas, there is no cautionary tale of Red Riding Hood without the wolf. Ali's wolf goes so far as to say he purposely sacrificed himself for the moral of the tale, future generations and the amusement of children.

The Red Riding Hood tale is a strange one in many cultures. In Perrault's version, "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" (side note: yes, chaperon is a cap with a small cape attached for protection from the cold and it is where we get the word chaperone– someone who protects us) the story is supposed to serve as a warning to young maidens to beware of predatory men (a girl who lost her virginity at the time, circa late 1600s, was said to have "seen the wolf"). Perrault's "Red" gets into bed with the wolf and gets eaten.

Perrault explains his tale: "From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there one with an amenable disposition — neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!"

In other versions of the tale "Red" eats part of the grandma, becoming a cannibal, before the wolf eats her. The red color in the story stands for a great deal but it all boils down to blood, pretty much.

When I was a kid, no eating took place in the story. Grandma got locked in the closet and a huntsman came in the nick of time to kill the wolf.

Sometimes the wolf ate the grandma (and "Red") but the huntsman comes in and cuts open the wolf releasing them both.

All in all, Red Riding Hood is a pretty scary story full of sex and violence (like most fairytales, I suppose. See Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" or Sondheim's musical "Into the Woods")

It's Saturday so here are our cartoons, music and etc:

First, Sam the Sham and the Pharohs with "Little Red Riding Hood" : www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM8_v4AwltM&feature=related

Here's Bugs Bunny with "Little Red Riding Rabbit": www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmvuAn3mz5E

Here's one of my all-time faves–the Tex Avery classic "Red Hot Riding Hood": www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaS6wMQOiNk

This is a very unusual Walter Lanz Dinky Doodle Red Riding Hood cartoon from 1925:www.youtube.com/watch?v=qot-vI00Ih0

A Walter Lanz 1953 Red Riding Hood with a Coke: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVZd-HtT518

Always the voice of narrator Edward Everett Horton amuses in Rocky and Bulwinkle's "Fractured Fairytales" version of Red Riding Hood: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C4xH216IBo

Remember this movie from 1984, The Company of Wolves? (predating Twilight with its sexual subtext):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGhqfFvb4j0

Oh ba-ruther–only a glimpse of Gary Oldman saves this from total uselessness (although The Muppets trailer is pretty okay): www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM8V3cHdSC4

I suppose since it's Halloween we ought to at least nod to Wolfmother and "Witchcraft": www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgXzAu1cggc&feature=related

Have you seen these thematic Living Dead dolls? This is Red Riding Hood and the Wolf: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAC-rU76EuM&feature=fvsr

It's a loose connection but so worth it to hear, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels with "C.C. Rider" (sometimes called "Jenny Take a Ride"): www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9eWGdJIW74&feature=related

Number 289: John Greenleaf Whittier "The Pumpkin"

The Pumpkin

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,

The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, 

And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold, 

With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,

Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,

While he waited to know that his warning was true, 

And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain 

For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain. 
 



On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden 

Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden; 

And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold 

Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;

Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,

On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,

Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines, 

And the sun of September melts down on his vines. 

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest; 

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board 

The old broken links of affection restored; 

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before; 

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye, 

What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie? 



Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling, 

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!

When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune, 

Our chair a broad pumpkin, - our lantern the moon, 

Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam

In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team! 


Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better

E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine, 

Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!

And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express, 

Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less, 

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, 

And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow, 

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky 

Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

--John Greenleaf Whittier

Hap Notes: John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) is remembered for his staunch abolitionist writings as much, or more, than for his poetry now. He was an editor, writer and poet and he used the pen to forward the cause of freedom. He was born and raised a Quaker and took the principles of the Quakers to heart.

Folks who went to school in the first half of the 20th century, were often assigned to memorize a Whittier poem or two, most notably "Barbara Frietchie" ("Shoot if you must this old gray head but spare your country's flag," she said") and "Maud Muller" ("For of all sad words of tongue or pen/ The saddest are these: "It might have been.") and "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind." Here is the poem, set to music and now a somewhat familiar hymn, being sung in Westminster Abbey: www.youtube.com/watch?v=faNij71hh7o

In today's poem, Whittier likens the leaves of the pumpkin to the plant that grew over the head of the reluctant biblical prophet Jonah. (Quick recap for the Bible impaired: Jonah was asked by God to go to Ninevah and tell the people to repent or deal with the Lord's anger. Jonah didn't want to go- we aren't sure why until the end of the story- and tries to escape on a boat. God makes the sea to churn, Jonah gets tossed off the boat - he tells the crew to do it, he knows it's God's wrath at him that is causing it. He gets swallowed by a whale which he lives inside for three days until he tells God he will go to Ninevah and do as he is asked. He gets there, tells the people to repent or else God will send down a can of whupass. Immediately the people repent. Disgruntled, Jonah goes out to the city gates and sits there. He tells God, "This is exactly why I didn't want to come here- I knew they'd repent and you would spare them- what a waste of time." A vine grows up alongside him and shades him in the hot sun. The next day as he sits there the vine is destroyed by a worm. This vexes Jonah and when God asks him what is the matter, Jonah expresses his anger over the destruction of his shade plant. God says, "So, nu, you have compassion for a plant but not the thousands of people in Nineveh?")

The fairy tale he is talking about in the poem is Cinderella. Mostly, though, Whittier is extolling the virtues of Fall and the delicious memories and taste of pumpkin pie. He compares the pride of the Spaniard growing pumpkins (which are not really as round or orange as American ones) with the Yankee farmer's. He also talks about the American Jack-o-lantern and the candle's glow inside the carved out orange squash. (In England and Ireland they do the same with turnips or beets.) Pumpkins can be grown, FYI, on every continent except Antarctica.

Pumpkins are thought to have originated in North America.

Here's a good Whittier quote: "You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought."

You can find more Whittier here: www.poetry-archive.com/w/whittier_john_greenleaf.html