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.

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'.

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

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

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?