The Rattle Bag: The N-O Poems

realiz · Thu Apr 28, 2011 11:37 am

Are you going to start at this point or wait until you get a copy of the book? This looks very interesting. I found the first one on the list, so here it is if you want to start. I'll think I'll order a copy and try to follow along, though I'm away for the next ten days so I might miss the first few if you're moving along.

"The Names of the Hare," anonymous Middle English lyric
The Names of the Hare

Translation from the Middle English by Seamus Heaney

The man the hare has met
will never be the better of it
except he lay down on the land
what he carries in his hand—
be it staff or be it bow—
and bless him with his elbow
and come out with this litany
with devotion and sincerity
to speak the praises of the hare.
Then the man will better fare.

'The hare, call him scotart,
big-fellow, bouchart,
the O'Hare, the jumper,
the rascal, the racer.

Beat-the-pad, white-face,
funk-the-ditch, shit-ass.

The wimount, the messer,
the skidaddler, the nibbler,
the ill-met, the slabber.

The quick-scut, the dew-flirt,
the grass-biter, the goibert,
the home-late, the do-the-dirt.

The starer, the wood-cat,
the purblind, the furze cat,
the skulker, the bleary-eyed,
the wall-eyed, the glance-aside
and also the hedge-springer.

The stubble-stag, the long lugs,
the stook-deer, the frisky legs,
the wild one, the skipper,
the hug-the-ground, the lurker,
the race-the-wind, the skiver,
the shag-the-hare, the hedge-squatter,
the dew-hammer, the dew-hoppper,
the sit-tight, the grass-bounder,
the jig-foot, the earth-sitter,
the light-foot, the fern-sitter,
the kail-stag, the herb-cropper.

The creep-along, the sitter-still,
the pintail, the ring-the-hill,
the sudden start,
the shake-the-heart,
the belly-white,
the lambs-in-flight.

The gobshite, the gum-sucker,
the scare-the-man, the faith-breaker,
the snuff-the-ground, the baldy skull,
(his chief name is scoundrel.)

The stag sprouting a suede horn,
the creature living in the corn,
the creature bearing all men's scorn,
the creature no one dares to name.'

When you have got all this said
then the hare's strength has been laid.
Then you might go faring forth—
east and west and south and north,
wherever you incline to go—
but only if you're skilful too.
And now, Sir Hare, good-day to you.
God guide you to a how-d'ye-do
with me: come to me dead
in either onion broth or bread.

Source of the text - The Rattle Bag, edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes. London: Faber and Faber, 1982, pp. 305-306.
Posted by bourguignomicon at 7:58 AM

DWill · Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:06 am

Wow, "The Names of the Hare" that realiz posted is a stunning poem, and shows the promise of this anthology. Somebody said that enjoying a catalog of items, as in the Iliad, is the mark of a poetic soul. I don't know if I have one, but I enjoyed all the amazingly inventive names of the hare. The litany seems to be an almost religious appreciation for the hare that will provide the man his meal.

Do Hughes and Heaney tell us on what basis they are selecting these poems? I like the idea of a personal selection by two guys who know poetry as well as anyone, vs. the Harmon approach that leaves the selection up to the faceless anthologizers of the past!

It would appear to be at least as eclectic a collection as The Top 500, judging just by the first two. I like a good old "memento mori" like Nashe's poem. Why do we no longer look at life and death that way? "After His Death" seems to be some paradoxical statement of how the villain became the hero of the new regime through decree. Very modern.

Saffron · Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:40 am

This is a bit out of order, but I am doing the best I can to catch by retro formating the treads for The Rattle Bag.

N-O

"The Names of the Hare," Anon
"Napoleon," Walter de la Mare
"'A narrow Fellow in the Grass,'" Emily Dickinson
"Nature's Lineaments," Robert Graves
"'nobody loses all the time,'" e. e. cummings
"The North Ship," Philip Larkin
"The Nose," Iain Crichton Smith
"'Now entertain conjecture of a time,'" William Shakespeare
"Nutting," William Wordsworth
"The Octopus," Ogden Nash
"Ode to a Nightingale," John Keats
"Of Poor B. B.," Bertolt Brecht
"The Old Familiar Faces," Charles Lamb
"'An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,'" W. B. Yeats
"Old Men," Ogden Nash
"Omens," Anon
"On a Tree Fallen Across the Road," Robert Frost
"On Buying a Horse," Anon
"On My First Sonne," Ben Jonson
"On the Beach at Fontana," James Joyce
"On the Cards and Dice," Sir Walter Ralegh
"On the Congo," Harry Edmund Martinson
"On Wenlock Edge," A. E. Housman
"'One Christmas-time,'" William Wordsworth
"'Our revels now are ended,'" William Shakespeare
"Out in the Dark," Edward Thomas
"'Out, Out—'" Robert Frost
"The Owl," Edward Thomas
"The Oxen," Thomas Hardy
"The Ox-Tamer," Walt Whitman
"Ozymandias," Percy Bysshe Shelley

giselle · Thu Dec 15, 2011 7:24 pm

Out in the Dark

Out in the dark over the snow
The fallow fawns invisible go
With the fallow doe;
And the winds blow
Fast as the stars are slow.

Stealthily the dark haunts round
And, when the lamp goes, without sound
At a swifter bound
Than the swiftest hound,
Arrives, and else is drowned;

And star and I and wind and deer
Are in the dark together, - near,
Yet far, and fear
Drums on my ear
In that sage company drear.

How weak and little in the light,
All the universe of sight,
Love and delight,
Before the might,
If you love it not, of night.

Edward Thomas

Saffron · Thu Dec 15, 2011 9:07 pm


	giselle wrote: Out in the Dark Edward Thomas

Well I'm not sure of what it means, but I love the feel of the poem.

giselle · Fri Dec 16, 2011 3:48 pm

Saffron: I think it was the 'feel' of "Out in the Dark" that attracted me as well, perhaps even the 'atmosphere'. I also like the rhyming pattern. I'm not clear on meaning either, but my basic interpretation is around fear of the invisible due in this case to darkness/night. The imagery of being out there with the deer, beautiful, peaceful, non-threatening animals, is contrasted with fearfulness of what cannot be seen. I think he adds an interesting thought in the last line "If you love it not, of night" that it's the person's feelings about the night that make the difference, not so much the night itself.

realiz · Fri Dec 16, 2011 7:32 pm

Glad to see The Rattle Bag going again. I like this one, too. Especially the line: And star and I and wind and deer. Nothing to fear but the dark.

DWill · Fri Dec 16, 2011 7:44 pm

I like the way it works when sometimes with a poem it's just one word that, once you understand it, helps unlock the poem. For me it was "else" in l. 10, which I realized was really to be read as all else.

Saffron · Fri Dec 16, 2011 8:26 pm


	realiz wrote: Glad to see The Rattle Bag going again. I like this one, too. Especially the line: And star and I and wind and deer. Nothing to fear but the dark.

It maybe the time of year that brings us all back. I always feel more introspective in the dark part of the year.

giselle · Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:46 pm


	DWill wrote: I like the way it works when sometimes with a poem it's just one word that, once you understand it, helps unlock the poem. For me it was "else" in l. 10, which I realized was really to be read as all else.

Good catch, DWill. That little 3 letter word really clarifies the meaning. In a poem of 20 short lines every word makes a difference, a shift of meaning and of feeling. When I first read the poem I thought the line "sage company drear" referred to the deer (since they are tangible company) but on rereading I think it refers to the night/dark (perhaps this is obvious to everyone else!) but certainly the poem makes more sense that way.

As to the poems conclusion, I think if one lives at the earth's farther latitudes, its best to love the night. Here's the corrected text:

Out in the Dark

Out in the dark over the snow
The fallow fawns invisible go
With the fallow doe;
And the winds blow
Fast as the stars are slow.

Stealthily the dark haunts round
And, when the lamp goes, without sound
At a swifter bound
Than the swiftest hound,
Arrives, and all else is drowned;

And star and I and wind and deer
Are in the dark together, - near,
Yet far, and fear
Drums on my ear
In that sage company drear.

How weak and little in the light,
All the universe of sight,
Love and delight,
Before the might,
If you love it not, of night.

Edward Thomas

Saffron · Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:47 pm

giselle wrote:


	DWill wrote: I like the way it works when sometimes with a poem it's just one word that, once you understand it, helps unlock the poem. For me it was "else" in l. 10, which I realized was really to be read as all else.

Good catch, DWill. That little 3 letter word really clarifies the meaning. In a poem of 20 short lines every word makes a difference, a shift of meaning and of feeling. When I first read the poem I thought the line "sage company drear" referred to the deer (since they are tangible company) but on rereading I think it refers to the night/dark (perhaps this is obvious to everyone else!) but certainly the poem makes more sense that way.

I must admit felt a little disappointed that the word "all" was actually in the poem and not just implied. Now as for the last stanza of the poem - I've been thinking about it. Here is how I read it - mind you this is just a stab in the dark.

How weak and little in the light,
All the universe of sight,
Love and delight,
Before the might,
If you love it not, of night.

If you fear the darkness of night, that fear allows the dark to swallows up the world we know and live in by day light. If you are comfortable in the dark it is expansive - think about closing your eyes and the feeling of expansion or looking up into the night sky and know that it goes on and on - bigger than we can really imagine.

giselle · Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:06 pm

Great discussion on this poem, thank you all. And interesting point, Saffron .. the inclusion of a word can clarify meaning in a literal sense but at the same time remove the subtler aspect of implication that might actually carry more poetic force .. the 'said/unsaid' trade off that a poet can face? On the meaning of the last stanza, I like your 'stab in the dark', I think you may have nailed it. We do commonly use 'the dark' as a proxy for the unknown, sometimes to be feared and other times just plain unknown, as in the expression 'being kept in the dark'.

giselle · Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:31 pm

Christmas, childhood credulity and hope that lives on despite the wisdom (cynicism?) of age …. maybe it’s best to always carry a bit of our childish credulity with us otherwise we may lose the ability to imagine and dream.

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
‘Now they are all on their knees,’
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
‘Come , see the oxen kneel

‘In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,’
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

Thomas Hardy

giselle · Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:59 pm

I like Philip Larkin's poetry, he has appeared on this poetry thread a few times, but some of his poems seem quite obscure and difficult to comprehend .. I think this one is more straightforward and is told in a story (legend) format that is easy to follow. I also like the way he repeats his thematic line 'And one was rigged for a long journey' in the last stanza with the slight change to 'it', which brings resolution as to 'which ship' was rigged. I think his repeated use of the 'over the sea' line in the first 4 stanzas really links these stanzas together. This poem reminds me of stories where three brothers go off in separate directions to find their fortunes and face adversity and have varying strengths and weaknesses in their characters.

The North Ship
Legend

I saw three ships go sailing by,
Over the sea, the lifting sea,
And the wind rose in the morning sky,
And one was rigged for a long journey.

The first ship turned towards the west,
Over the sea, the running sea,
And by the wind was all possessed
And carried to a rich country.

The second turned towards the east,
Over the sea, the quaking sea,
And the wind hunted it like a beast
To anchor in captivity.

The third ship drove towards the north,
Over the sea, the darkening sea,
But no breath of wind came forth,
And the decks shone frostily.

The northern sky rose high and black
Over the proud unfruitful sea,
East and west the ships came back,
Happily or unhappily:

But the third went wide and far
Into the unforgiving sea
Under a fire-spilled star,
And it was rigged for a long journey.

Philip Larkin

giselle · Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:12 pm

Ode to a Nightingale was reportedly written under a plum tree in Keats garden. There is something especially romantic about writing a poem while sitting under a plum tree. Keats is feeling quite mortal.

Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats

I

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,--
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

II

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

III

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

IV

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

V

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

VI

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
To thy high requiem become a sod.

VII

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

VIII

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?

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