Robert Tulip wrote:I am enjoying the hot 100.

And so it shall be, the Hot 100. Thanks for that. Maybe saffron will change the title of the thread for us.

89. "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd," by Sir Walter Raleigh. We also read the poem to which this is supposed to be a reply, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," by Christopher Marlowe. I wanted to see which number that one came in at, but I can't find it in the list, which is driving me crazy. I like Marlowe's poem somewhat better (well, I guess I would). But Raleigh's is very clever. Just to preserve the dialogue, I've placed Marlowe first. 3 dings a piece.

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields
Woods or steepy mountain yields

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flower, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

"The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"


I F all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,—
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.

DWill wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote:I am enjoying the hot 100.

And so it shall be, the Hot 100. Thanks for that. Maybe saffron will change the title of the thread for us.

Robert, I love it! DWill, your wish is my command.

DWill wrote: 89. "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd," by Sir Walter Raleigh. We also read the poem to which this is supposed to be a reply, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," by Christopher Marlowe. I wanted to see which number that one came in at, but I can't find it in the list, which is driving me crazy. I like Marlowe's poem somewhat better (well, I guess I would). But Raleigh's is very clever. Just to preserve the dialogue, I've placed Marlowe first. 3 dings a piece.

You silly, we haven't gotten that far yet! It is #12. You are confused becasue we have talked about it on other threads. In fact, on one that you began called companion poems or something like that.

I give Sir Walter Raleigh 3 dings, I give Marlowe 4 -- although we are not yet there.

Now I'm going mental. It did occur to me that I was wrong and the Marlowe was ahead, but I still couldn't find it.At least this gives me a chance to copy one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs. It's a great tune.

I got mixed up confusion
Man, it's a-killin' me

Well, there's too many people
And they're all too hard to please

Well, my hat's in my hand
Babe, I'm walkin' down the line

An' I'm lookin' for a woman
Whose head's mixed up like mine

Well, my head's full of questions
My temp'rature's risin' fast

Well, I'm lookin' for some answers
But I don't know who to ask

But I'm walkin' and wonderin'
And my poor feet don't ever stop

Seein' my reflection
I'm hung over, hung down, hung up

Dwill, wonderful, actually, presently both poems back to back for a direct comparison! I'm afraid I'm not being very original, but I would give the poems the exact dings that Saffron gave. Here again my request to read poems aloud. Both of these improve greatly when heard and sometimes you find yourself chanting one or the other line. Songs without music. I think even a rapper or techno could do something with these.

I like Christopher Marlow's poem far better than Walt's.

4 dings for Chris

2 dings for Walt.

And I'm only giving these two dings because she doesn't succumb to his charm and tells him exactly where to get off.

Pretty interesting to read these two as a pair. The first, all flowery and lovey-dovey, like infatuation is prone to be. Beautiful too. And then you read the response with its 'reality check'--no being run over with emotional hormones here. Where's any promise of committment from the shepherd. What happens when 'rivers rage and rocks grow cold'... the nymph rightly asserts. And you begin to wonder if the shepherd was just overrun with hormones and did not consider what would sustain his love come winter... "But could youth last and love still breed..." The nymph seems to know from experience that infatuation isn't enough. There's got to be a foundation of genuine love and committment to the well-being of the loved...
And all this said in poetic form...interesting.
My heart is drawn to the first one. The second leaves me cold. I'd like to read a third that's got the beauty of the infatuated youth along with the glory of long-lasting love in old age... Is that asking too much?

Dawn wrote:

My heart is drawn to the first one. The second leaves me cold. I'd like to read a third that's got the beauty of the infatuated youth along with the glory of long-lasting love in old age... Is that asking too much?

YUP!! Too much. You get called an aged wife.....

Now, LofS and her husband read poetry to one another, but my husband and I walk the canals and he moans about his back and I moan about my knees. But we do make one another laugh...

I know he loves me because he laughs at all my feeble jokes.

88. "My Papa's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke. TR's father owned a greenhouse operation. He liked his drink, too.

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

DWill wrote:88. "My Papa's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke. TR's father owned a greenhouse operation. He liked his drink, too.

3 from me

Here is a link to a recording from "Favorite Poem Project"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJfGTIT0Sqg

Favorite Project
http://www.favoritepoem.org/

Roethke is one of my favorite poets and "Papa" gets 4+ dings from me.
This one is always good for differing and having great discussions. One of my daughters finds it violent whilst the other one thinks it isn't.
Roethke's father died when he was pretty young and I see this poem as a declaration of love to a person who was obviously not a tame, gentle person, but nevertheless one who was hard-working and played--danced--with his small son. There is always quite a bit of focus on the "brutal" aspects, such as the drink, the scraping on the belt buckle, the pounding out time, etc. But I argue that through the eyes of a boy, here is his father, having a romp (=play) with him, whirling him around and off to bed.
He refers to this man as his papa, not his father. There is more distance in the word "father", a closeness in "papa". He certainly doesn't refer to his mother as "Mama".
The picture I see is of a man, after a hard day's work, having met his friends at a bar, comes home dirty, rather drunk, but pleased to see his son. Through the eyes of whiskey, he doesn't realize he's being a bit gruff, dances with the boy and brings him to bed. This is not the the picture of violence some see. I don't think the vocabulary used supports the idea of violence. I think of it as an ode to his dead father. And Roethke hangs on to this moment, frozen in time in his memory, like death...as in the poem.
Roethke is a poet who needs to be read for surface value, but also for introspection. And he tends to go from micro to macro. If you read this aloud, you find yourself slipping into 3/4 time (waltz) although granted, it is not explicitly written as such. The poem gathers momentum as it goes along, right up to the last line. Notice the lack of adjectives--this one is carried along on its verbs. A very dynamic poem.