Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

This is an illustration done
by Blake himself.
Every original copy of his
poetry books were hand drawn,
 and each one was unique.
They are now very rare and
worth a fortune.

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

                                                 William Blake, 1794

I love this poem. At first glance, it seems fairly simple. I think that many of us are easily deceived by rhyming couplets in this way. There are many interpretations of this poem¹, many of which focus on the spiritual aspect of it. It can be said that “The Tyger” deals particularly with the age-old theological debate of the reason for evil or terror in a world that was supposedly made by a good and loving God. Many have said that the entire collection of poems from which this poem comes, called Songs of Innocence and Experience, is commentary on that sole question. When he mentions the Lamb, that is a reference to one of the poems² in the Songs of Innocence, where “The Tyger” comes from Songs of Experience. The contrast between the two poems, although written in the same form, is striking, to mirror the contrast of the two animals.

What is your interpretation of this poem? What kind of questions does it raise? Does it answer any? What else did you think of it?

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LsMoUtBlDk  <-- An amazing short film based on the poem.

2. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172926  <-- "The Lamb" by William Blake

Surrounded, detatched

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,

I marked where on a promontory it stood isolated,

Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge that you need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
                                                                                   
                                                                                      Walt Whitman

There is another poem written by Whitman with the famous lines, "Oh Captain, my captain", as quoted in the film that everyone should watch at least once, Dead Poet's Society.  In terms of this poem, I get a very distinct feeling of an emptiness waiting to be filled. Like there is some sort of potential energy that hasn't yet been manifested in the universe. I love how it is conveyed first by the image of the spider in the middle of its web, the structure that took hours to construct and that will eventually be destroyed, just waiting for something to fall in. I also love that the human soul is made parallel with the spider, just suspended in space.

Another aspect to this poem is the repetition, The filament launching forth, like life is going on and on and on, with no end in sight and with not much foresight, like the soul constantly reaching for something more.

What do you think about using the spider as a metaphor to the human soul? Is it a weird image?

Thy eternal summer shall not fade

William Shakespeare’s 18^th sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  Technology has won many battles, but I seem to have won the war!  *maniacal laugh*   

One of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, Sonnet 18, or “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer;s Day?” is probably one of the loveliest poems ever written.  I use the word lovely in the most blatant sense possible.  It’s a love poem.  It is also pleasing to the ear, and it has beautiful summer imagery.  This is one of those poems that, if recited, will make women swoon and blush (if they like that kind of thing).  Pretty easy to understand, it’s no wonder it is the most well-known of Shakespeare’s non-dramatic works.

How would you feel if your significant other (or a complete stranger?) recited this to you?  Would you ever think of reciting poetry to woo another, and why?  What else do you think of this poem?

Two and Seventy Stenches

Cologne

In Köhln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fang'd with murderous stones
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches ;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks!
Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne ;
But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

                                         Samuel T. Coleridge

Köhln, Germany

The context of this poem is very simple.  Coleridge liked to do a lot of travelling, and he spent some time in Germany.  At the time this was written (1825), sanitation was not one of Europe’s strong suits, and the town of Köhln (pronounced “cologne”), was one of those that was particularly malodorous.  So, to combat the stench, the people would often wear perfumes and the usage of cologne was born.

 

The poem itself is fun to read, a very distinct tone being set in the first line.  A stinky, dirty, all round unpleasant place to be.  I love the last four lines.  I feel like they make a strong statement regarding pollution and the usage of the rivers to deposit our waste.  A couple of centuries later, it is still done.

What do you think?  Did you like this poem? 

All That We See or Seem

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow--

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand--

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep—while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! Can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe

What a beautiful work of art! I recommend reading this poem a few times, just to bathe in it. Absorb the imagery, and the emotion in which it steeps. I especially love the development of the poem. The first stanza is only an introduction to the notion of hopelessness, and that our lives are but a dream. The second stanza drives the feeling home with the use of prayer. You also get a sense of falling: the grains of sand falling through fingers, tears falling from desperate eyes. It definitely leaves one contemplating life's nature.

What kinds of feelings do these words pull from you? What do you think?

Rain in my head

Rain

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand--
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head

                                                    Shel Silverstein

I thought I'd post this one because we've been experiencing a lot (and I mean a lot) of rain here in Southern Ontario. I like this poem because it is kind of different, fun and fairly light-hearted. Plus it's fun to say! It has such a fantastic rhythm. Hope the weather clears up soon!

What did you like about this poem?

Keep fighting

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

                                               Dylan Thomas

The context of this poem is very widely accessible. It was written by Thomas as a witness to his father growing frail with old age and couldn't bear the though of his father, a veteran, dying without putting up a fight. The poem's form is a villanelle¹ which is very effective. It gives one a sense of the repetitive way one encourages one to keep fighting, or perhaps the repetitiveness of the elderly mind. The examples of the different kind of men (wise, good, wild and grave) hit home that every kind of person, no matter what mindset in which they have lived their life, needs to fight to the very end.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanelle

What do you think? Can you relate to this poem?

If you look long enough...

This is a Photograph of Me

It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)

                            Margaret Atwood

What I love about this poem is that it is exactly that which the title says it is. Like many poems, it is a snapshot. It is a tiny fraction of a story about someone we have no knowledge of, in a place that is just as ambiguous. Every aspect of this poem makes it that. Atwood uses the image of the photograph to make the snapshot all the more vivid. It starts out as just a picture. The only thing in the readers mind is the thin piece of paper with a blurry scene, maybe someone's hand holding it up. Then gradually, methodically, she takes up deeper and deeper into the photograph, at first just pictorally, then emotionally. Not to mention the silencing effect the subject itself has on the reader. Simply a fantastic work of art.

In the deep heart's core

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

William Butler Yeats

This poem, one of Yeats' earlier works, is one that moves me very deeply. I feel almost the exact same way about the Canadian Maritimes. Although I have never seen Atlantic Canada, she is calling my name. I can envision myself living in peace there, waking up to the sounds of ocean waves. I know I probably have my head in the clouds a bit, but I can't help it, standing on the pavement of my urban home. And this poem awakens those feelings even more. And of course there is doubt. I may never get there. The part of this poem that hints ot doubt is the first line of the first and last stanzas. I will arise and go now. You know when people talk about what they are going to do, and that's all they talk about? They just keep repeating how they are going to do these great things, and the more they say it, you feel like the less likely they are going to do them.

What kinds of feelings does this poem stir in you? What of the beautiful imagery?

Oh, to see ourselves as others see us!

Before you scream and run away, this poem is best read out loud exactly as it is written. So find a nice cozy spot and clear your throat and give it a whirl (make sure no one is around first, or they may think you're a bit nuts...). A link to the direct translation is at the end, but try reading it first. This poem was written by Robbie Burns after noticing a louse crawling on a lady's bonnet in church.

To A Louse

Ha! Whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly,
I canna say but ye strut rarely
Owre gauze and lace,
Tho' faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her --
Sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar's hauffet squattle:
There you may creep, and sprawl, and spr
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there! ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rils, snug an' tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it ---
The vera tapmost, tow'ring height
O' miss's bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose ou
As plump an' grey as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie ye sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum!

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy:
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss's fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't.

O Jenny, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
You little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin!
Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin'!

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

                             Robert Burns

http://www.worldburnsclub.com/poems/translations/552.htm

I love this poem. It is hilarious. I love how Burns addresses the louse, and just makes the whole situation so grotesquely vivid to the reader. But what I love most is the last stanza: “Oh, would some power the gift to give us, to see ourselves as others see us. It would from many a blunder free us, and foolish notion”. Truer words were never spoken. I like to think that I know fairly well how others see me, but I find that I am often wrong. Sometimes that's a good thing, but more often not. Also, if I knew how others saw me, I would most certainly, like the poem speculates, make far fewer mistakes than I do.

What did you think of the poem? Fun to read out loud? What did you like about it?  

How are you living?

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

                                           Robert Frost

I am hoping that this particular poem is very familiar to most, as it is so familiar to me. I'm going to focus on the most famous line here, which I'm sure everyone has heard, and used. “The road less travelled” has been a phrase so often used that it is virtually cliché. To take the road less travelled is to...tread the path less worn..? I suppose it is just such a cliché that there really is no other way of saying it. While this seems like a great thing to do, our culture says otherwise. The media tends to try and make clones. Everyone has to have the so-called “perfect body” for their respective sexes, have a job that allows you to be able to buy a new wardrobe every season, a perfect family and a nice car parked in the driveway of your house (that incidentally sports a white-picket fence). Anything out of the ordinary is...well...out of the ordinary. And not in a good way. I hope that I am wrong for the most part, but it's hard not to think that way when you're flipping through the latest issue of Cosmo, or People.  So check how you're living!  Are you "off the beaten path", as it were, or are you living in the mainstream?


What do you think? Am I too critical of the media? Also, what else did you get from this poem?

We are out of tune

The World is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon;
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;    
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

                     William Wordsworth, 1806

     This poem is very near and dear to
my heart.  It says very eloquently, in only one line, a million
problems of the world.  The world is too much with us, late and soon.
 Now, I know I haven't had much life experience compared to the
majority of the world, but I sometimes wish I was born in the times
when you had to work to learn things.  When Google didn't exist. 
When you had to actually had to get off your rear and walk to the
store to get something (look at Netflix, for example.  It's for lazy
people), or walk down the street if you wanted to talk to your best
friend.  People didn't have carpal tunnel from typing for eight hours
a day, or back problems from sitting hunched over, staring at the
computer screen). 

     Don't get me wrong.  If those
things didn't exist, I probably wouldn't be writing to you today. 
But there is a certain charm in “the good ol' days”.  The second
line also screams of one today's problems: consumerism.  All we do is
get and spend.  Very few of us will see  nature, and just stand in
awe of its power.  Wordsworth was so impassioned by this (keep in
mind the date in which this was written), that he says, living in a
world of Christianity, he would rather be a primitive pagan than not
have the opportunity to be moved by Nature's raw beauty, or
appreciate the permanent. Despite its age, this poem is still
incredibly applicable, even more so today than in 1806.

What do you think?  Am I being too
harsh on the modern world?

My Wrath

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

                                               William Blake

I first heard these words in a song by Rajaton, the Finnish a cappella ensemble¹, written as an adaptation of this poem from William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience². I love this poem because it is full of moral irony that is not usually seen in poetry from this era. It says a lot about how it is our choice to follow through with our vendettas. I thought it fitting due to the recent developments on Osama bin Laden.

What do you think? Is the need to carry out revenge human nature? Depending on the intensity of the crime, how unreasonable is it to forgive?

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajaton

2.  http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/blake/context.html

Fools like Me

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

                                        By Joyce Kilmer

I love this poem! It is so simple, but yet so powerful. The imagery is gorgeous, and the personification is perfect. The way the tree is written as a suckling baby, then as a spiritual subject, then as a pretty woman, and finally as a sweet lover, is so captivating to me. And the last stanza ties up the beginning, grounding it to the reality that people are just people, and God and nature are far more creative than we are.

Lovely little poem, or commentary on the limits of humanity? What do you think?

Dear Friend

Shakespeare's 30^th Sonnet

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

When I first read this sonnet, I was kind of blown away by the sweetness of it. For the first twelve lines, the individual in the poem seems to be almost drowning in sorrow and self-pity, becoming more and more unable to breathe in the “remembrance of things past” (the irony being that he is wasting time lamenting over the time he has wasted). What is odd is that the first four lines give one the feeling that this kind of thought is a regular occurrence, but then he admits that he is not used to crying about things. At the time this was written, it was believed that sighing was detrimental to your health (Shakespeare's Henry VI 3.2.61-3: 'blood-consuming sighs”). With that in mind, you can imagine the individual being fairly old, perhaps on his last few years of life, as he has lost many friends to death's grasp (line 6). By the twelfth line, one is almost fed up with the mellow-drama of moaning and groaning. Shakespeare is famous for his snappy two-lined endings and he doesn't disappoint, turning the whole poem on its head. It has been said that people never forget anything, it is just a matter of digging up what you think you've forgotten. This poem is a testament to that, and the influence that memories can have. You can be completely paralysed by one memory, and overjoyed by another. I can relate to the sentiment of thinking of a person, or a time, and having that thought alone outweigh all of the negative feelings that a lifetime of mistakes has dished out.


    How did you read this sonnet? As a nod at old age, or maybe friendship? Did you have to read it a few times, or did it hit home the first time through? What are your thoughts?

What is this?

     This is a blog.  Obviously.  But what it is specifically is a blog that contains poetry.  Because there are thousands of those on the internet these days, I will try to be even more specific.  It is a blog containing poetry from poets who are dead and gone, alive and well, happy, sad (but mostly sad) and other things that I do not care to mention here.  Because that concept is most likely not very original, I will describe in detail what I hope will happen on this blog.

     I want this to be a conversation.  Let's talk.  Let's talk about these poems that I carefully choose to put here for you to see.  I want to talk to you.

     First, I will say my thoughts on the particular poem of the day, then I want to hear what you have to say.  I know I might not get too many people talking at first, but don't let that be a deterrent.  If this is a conversation between two people, so be it.  That will give me (and hopefully you) greater joy than not having spoken about these works of art at all.

     I think I will start off with a post a day for 30 days.  Then I might slow down.  Or I might not.  We'll see, I suppose.  It most likely depends entirely on you.

     Thank you for reading my first post, and now let's get started.