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The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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oblivion

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Re: The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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Re Lowell: (see? Can't get away from that poem)--
the metre bothered me greatly, but today, I feel it is simply underscoring his mind-set and as such, is a tour de force!
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

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Penelope

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Re: The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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I don't know what to say about the Lowell. Except that my ferrets are such silly things, and very, very smelly.....but their very presence cheers me.

It's OK to be useless.

Oh but that Wilfred Owen.....it's horrible.....and took me right back to the graveyards in Ypres and the Menin Gate. I think it is truely shocking, in that poetry is such a gentle art...used to such effect to portray the brutality and insanity of war. Excellent!!

It is much harsher than Eliot's 'The Hollow Men'. Although I don't think Eliot's is any less true.
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....

Rafael Sabatini
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DWill

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Re: The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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101. "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter," by John Crowe Ransom. "Brown study'" is an interesting metaphor for the lifeless state of the girl. I don't quite understand it, though. Maybe a little of John Donne's tolling of the bell here, reminding everyone of the fate they share as mortals. I like this a good bit. It seems that the people are unable to grieve the girls' death ("stern stopped"), not for lack of feeling but out of the strangeness of having to think of one so completely alive as now dead. 4 dings.

There was such speed in her little body,
And such lightness in her footfall,
It is no wonder her brown study
Astonishes us all.

Her wars were bruited in our high window.
We looked among orchard trees and beyond
Where she took arms against her shadow,
Or harried unto the pond

The lazy geese, like a snow cloud
Dripping their snow on the green grass,
Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,
Who cried in goose, Alas,

For the tireless heart within the little
Lady with rod that made them rise
From their noon apple-dream and scuttle
Goose-fashion under the skies!

But now go the bells, and we are ready,
In one house we are stern stopped
To say we are vexed at her brown study,
Lying so primly propped.
Last edited by DWill on Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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DWill wrote:101. "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter," by John Crowe Ransom. "Brown study'" is an interesting metaphor for the lifeless state of the girl. I don't quite understand it, though. Maybe a little of John Donne's tolling of the bell here, reminding everyone of the fate they share as mortals. I like this a good bit. It seems that the people are unable to grieve the girls' death ("stern stopped"), not for lack of feeling but out of the strangeness of having to think of one so completely alive as now dead. 4 dings.
I found this:
The expression "brown study" is a fourteenth century British term that started out meaning a dark melancholy mood, but later came to mean a state of thinking deeply about something. Before the two words were ever commonly used together in language, brown was used to describe something dark and sober while being in a study meant daydreaming. The saying brown study is obsolete, meaning not usually used at all, in today's language.

However, the term "browned off" is related to brown study and is commonly used in Britain today. Like brown study, browned off also used to be more associated with sadness or depression in its earlier usage, but then the meaning changed. Today, to be browned off means to be annoyed or fed up of someone or something. For example, browned off could be used to describe the attitude of protesters or workers on strike.
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Penelope

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I am familiar with the term, 'Brown Study'. I haven't heard it used recently but when I was younger it was used quite regularly to mean in deep thought. Whilst 'browned off' is still used......I would say to my sons, Will you not leave your dirty towels on the bathroom floor, because I'm getting browned off with picking up after you'. We now, more often, say 'cheesed off' to mean the same thing.

I don't really know where this saying comes from except that if anyone said, 'Jesus' as a term of explitive, I always complained, and so they started to say 'Cheese' instead....so it might have come from something like this.

I once said to my husband, 'Every time you say 'Jesus', I'm going to say 'Fuck'. So he stopped saying it. Shame really, because I like the F word.

In the 'Bells' poem by Ransom...I wonder if they are referring to a family pet, a cat or small dog? John Whitesides could conceivably be the name of a dog.

Do you think this could be? I sounds a bit blase, to be about a little child.
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....

Rafael Sabatini
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Re: The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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Well this is a beautiful poem and I love it.

This is a little girl, Penelope. It is John Whiteside's daughter who has died. Not John Whiteside and I don't think a dog or cat would be "taking arms" against its shadow!

I don't understand "lady with rod" But I think "to say we are vexed" seems such a slighting word to use for the grief and anger they must have felt. Even the geese seem to be expressing more grief. . ." Who cried in goose, Alas. For the tireless heart within the little Lady . . . "

Oh, now I get the "lady with rod" , , , she had a beebe gun! "That made them rise From their noon-apple dream" What a beautiful poem.

It makes me think a little of the Death of Mary White.
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Penelope

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I am duly chastened....and I can tell that you all love the poem.

I am sorry...but I don't love it.

The indescribable grief caused by the death of child...a dear little girl, with 'such speed in her body'....No, it isn't doing it for me...sorry!

But I am fast coming to the conclusion, that I might be a philistine. :blush:
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....

Rafael Sabatini
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oblivion

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Re: The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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This is another 4-dinger as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely and heart-breakingly beautiful, especially the lines:
"The lazy geese, like a snow cloud
Dripping their snow on the green grass..." --these are two of the most beautiful ines of peotry I have ever read, almost a Haiku. A beautiful pastoral painting or snapshot. It's a picture that stays sharp in you mind, even after the poem is read (and this is true of the other imagery here as well).
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

Religion is the only force in the world that lets a person have his prejudice or hatred and feel good about it --S C Hitchcock

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. --André Gide

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. --Julian Barnes
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Penelope

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Re: The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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oblivion wrote:

"The lazy geese, like a snow cloud
Dripping their snow on the green grass..." --these are two of the most beautiful ines of peotry I have ever read, almost a Haiku. A beautiful pastoral painting or snapshot.
.


No...I'm so sorry, I feel quite distressed....because I trust your judgement...but I can't feel the beauty, that I truely believe you are finding.

Maybe I'm just not ready to face it.
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....

Rafael Sabatini
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Re: The Top 500 Poems: 200-101

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Penelope wrote:I am duly chastened....and I can tell that you all love the poem.

I am sorry...but I don't love it.

The indescribable grief caused by the death of child...a dear little girl, with 'such speed in her body'....No, it isn't doing it for me...sorry!

But I am fast coming to the conclusion, that I might be a philistine. :blush:
I'm with you, Penelope. I can't really give this a ding, not even if I try.
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