bleachededen wrote:Where is everybody?

Thanks for asking! I do have computer problems which I hope to have solved shortly.

Poem Jockey: that's what introducing these poems reminds me of--you know, reelin' off the hits. It'd be pretty neat to have an actual radio show devoted to poetry. Anyway, the poem for today is one that I have always liked a lot, my favorite of the 86 we've seen so far. It has both a deep humanity and an idea of God that I could sign on to. See what you think.

414. "Frost at Midnight," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the _stranger's_ face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But _thou_, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

This is the first experience I have had of "Frost at Midnight." I agree, it is interesting, I will read it several more times before commenting further.

DWill wrote:
Poem Jockey: that's what introducing these poems reminds me of--you know, reelin' off the hits. It'd be pretty neat to have an actual radio show devoted to poetry.

Love "Poem Jockey" and the idea of a radio show that plays poetry! Anyone interested in something not too far off from this can go to YouTube and put in Dodge Poetry Festival. There are at least 100 readings that you can listen to.

Anyway, the poem for today is one that I have always liked a lot, my favorite of the 86 we've seen so far.

Now you've got me thinking, which has been my favorite thus far??? I do like "Frost at Midnight" but, it seems to me there was one other I liked at least as much. I must go back over them poems to figure this out. Anyone else care to say which poem has been their favorite so far? I think maybe the two Hopkins poems are as good for me as the Coleridge.

Now for #414. I really like how the poem opens and closes with Frost (reading over the poem the second time, I could not help but to read Frost as Robert F). A few months back I remember reading the first part of this poem and a discussion of the the poet's sleeping babe and the nearly extinquished fire. I can't seem to remember now what it was that was said.

I found this part of the poem interesting:

So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,

It is odd that we do brood over dreams. The emotions and images can linger long into the day; spilling from our sleep into our waking lives.

It might be a good idea to ask anyone who's been following along to give us their fav so far as we approach the hundred mark. Then, if this project finishes and we all do the same for each of the other 100s, we'll have a top five of the top 500.

What I like most about the poem is its most general quality, its meditative/musing voice. Coleridge says the mood of the night "suit/Abstruser musings." I always respond to the meditative stuff.

I like the film on the grate, which we've all seen in fluttering in fires. This brings into mind in a Proustian way his days at school when he'd watch the film on the fire--the 'stranger'-- and hoped that it presaged a vistor who would rescue him from his enslavement. The film seems related to the favorite Romantic image of the aeolian harp, the instrument that was placed in a window to catch breezes that would make it sound. It was a metaphor for the way sense perceptions vibrate the strings of our minds.

"Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,"

We can see how Thoreau, Emerson, et al got their transcendentalism.

I love "the numberless goings-on of life."

It's no surprise that the thoughts in the poem are so close to Wordworth's. The two poets were probably almost a single mind for a while. The last stanza of "Frost at Midnight" follows "Tintern Abbey":


"Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon."

From "Tintern Abbey":

"Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies;

PS to Saffron: In the biography of Frost I read by Jeffrey Meyer, the chapter on Frost's last years was titled "Frost at Midnight."

DWill wrote:It might be a good idea to ask anyone who's been following along to give us their fav so far as we approach the hundred mark. Then, if this project finishes and we all do the same for each of the other 100s, we'll have a top five of the top 500.

Spiffy idea!

My favorite that I have seen thus far was, not surprisingly, e.e. cummings' next to of course god, america, i.
Second in the running would be the Emily Dickinson, There Beats a Funeral in My Brain.

I raise my hand again for "Terrance, this is stupid stuff."

I have a conflict caused by the next poem, # 413, also by Coleridge, and titled "Dejection: An Ode." Saffron has started us off on a nice, happy road with national Poetry Month, and here I come with Coleridge's own Anatomy of Melancholy. It doesn't feel right to me, and as much as I tend to like to wallow in stuff like STC's Ode, I think the best strategy might be the old "Let's Not and Say We Did!" Tell you what: I'll just put down the first stanza, which is very nice, and the link to the rest. Those Romantics were great, but my, they could really go on and on. (I doubt that Saffron will be chalking the bike path with lines from this poem!)


Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms ;
And I fear, I fear, My Master dear !
We shall have a deadly storm.

--Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I
Well ! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Æolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo ! the New-moon winter-bright !
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o'erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
The coming-on of rain and squally blast.
And oh ! that even now the gust were swelling,
And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast !
Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,
And sent my soul abroad,
Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,
Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live !

http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge ... n_Ode.html

I'm glad I went back over the list before declaring my favorite of the first 100. Unequivocally, my favorite is by Yeats, The Song of Wandering Aengus.

Saffron wrote:I'm glad I went back over the list before declaring my favorite of the first 100. Unequivocally, my favorite is by Yeats, The Song of Wandering Aengus.

That's in my top 5 of the 100.

I shouldn't say anything prejudicial about the next two, 412 and 411. They're by Sir Walter Scott.

412. Lochnivar

O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,
He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
He staid not for brake, and he stopp'd not for stone,
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he enter'd the Netherby Hall,
Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers and all:
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,)
"O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"

"I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied; --
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide --
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

The bride kiss'd the goblet: the knight took it up,
He quaff'd off the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, --
"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a gailiard did grace;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bride-maidens whisper'd, "'twere better by far
To have match'd our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
When they reach'd the hall-door, and the charger stood near;
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;
They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran:
There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

411. Breathes There the Man with Soul So Dead

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.

Look up Mark Twain's hilarious take-down of Scott sometime. It's a gem. No, wait, it's James Fenimore Cooper!