Tag Archives: poetry

Innisfree

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hiatusYeats is one of the great poets of the English language and The Lake Isle of Innisfree is among his best known poems. I was introduced to it through folk music.

I arrived at college just at the end of the folk era. It had basically passed me by in my country-western Oklahoma life, and I was hooked as soon as I discovered it. One of my roommates had been in a high school folk group in Minnesota. He quickly found a girlfriend who could sing (beautifully) and a fellow guitarist, and started playing in the local coffee houses. I borrowed his tenor guitar to learn on, then got a six string, and I was just getting reasonably good when folk music disappeared overnight and psychedelic rock became the rage. Timing was never my strong suit.

My roommates and I were always short on cash, so we shared our stash of records. One of my favorites was Hamilton Camp’s Paths of Victory, but it went with my roommate when college was over. Camp took Yeat’s Innisfree and wrote music for it, and a sweeter song was never sung – at least until Judy Collins sang it a cappella to his music a year later.

This is one of the two or three songs I catch myself singing whenever I am alone and can harm no one. Chances are you already know the poem, but I suggest that you Google judy collins innisfree and hear it sung on U-tube. Or, if you are old enough to enjoy an early Dylan sound-alike, Google hamilton camp innisfree.

  It isn’t hard to find. Clearly, I’m not the only one who loves it.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree – William Butler Yeats – 1892

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 morning 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.

*****

During this last week of the year, I’m taking a hiatus, sort of, by placing some of my favorite poems instead of things I have written. My fantasy short story Prince of Exile will begin here the first full week of next year.

Channel Firing

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hiatusThis poem by Thomas Hardy was written in April of 1914,
fourteen years after Tagore, which I will give you in two days.
Two months later, World War I began.

         Channel Firing

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright.  While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled.  Till God called, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder.  Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening . . .

“Ha, ha.  It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again.  “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

During this last week of the year, I’m taking a hiatus, sort of, by placing some of my favorite poems instead of thing I have written. The fantasy short story Prince of Exile will begin here the first full week of next year.

The First Surveyor

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hiatusDuring this last week of the year, I’m taking a hiatus, sort of, by placing some of my favorite poems instead of things I have written. My fantasy short story Prince of Exile will begin here the first full week of next year.

A. B. Paterson, Australian poet, is often called Banjo Paterson because he signed his poetry with a picture of a banjo during his early days as a newspaper writer. Australian egalitarianism carries with it overtones of hidden conflict, between urban and outback, between privileged and unprivileged, and between pioneers and the late comers who often, as in this poem, had no understanding of the ones who came before them.

The First Surveyor

“The opening of the railway line! — the Governor and all!
With flags and banners down the street, a banquet and a ball.
Hark to ’em at the station now! They’re raising cheer on cheer!
‘The man who brought the railway through — our friend the engineer.’
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill!
‘Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill.
Before the engineer was born we’d settled with our stock
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock —
A line that kept us starving there in weary weeks of drought,
With ne’er a track across the range to let the cattle out.

“‘Twas then, with horses starved and weak and scarcely fit to crawl,
My husband went to find a way across the rocky wall.
He vanished in the wilderness — God knows where he was gone —
He hunted till his food gave out, but still he battled on.
His horses strayed (’twas well they did), they made towards the grass,
And down behind that big red hill they found an easy pass.

He followed up and blazed the trees, to show the safest track,
Then drew his belt another hole and turned and started back.
His horses died — just one pulled through with nothing much to spare;
God bless the beast that brought him home, the old white Arab mare!
We drove the cattle through the hills, along the new-found way,
And this was our first camping-ground — just where I live today.

“Then others came across the range and built the township here,
And then there came the railway line and this young engineer;
He drove about with tents and traps, a cook to cook his meals,
A bath to wash himself at night, a chain-man at his heels.
And that was all the pluck and skill for which he’s cheered and praised,
For after all he took the track, the same my husband blazed!

“My poor old husband, dead and gone with never a feast nor cheer;
He’s buried by the railway line! — I wonder can he hear
When by the very track he marked, and close to where he’s laid,
The cattle trains go roaring down the one-in-thirty grade.
I wonder does he hear them pass, and can he see the sight
When, whistling shrill, the fast express goes flaming by at night.

“I think ‘twould comfort him to know there’s someone left to care;
I’ll take some things this very night and hold a banquet there —
The hard old fare we’ve often shared together, him and me,
Some damper and a bite of beef, a pannikin of tea:
We’ll do without the bands and flags, the speeches and the fuss,
We know who ought to get the cheers — and that’s enough for us.

“What’s that? They wish that I’d come down — the oldest settler here!
Present me to the Governor and that young engineer!
Well, just you tell his Excellence, and put the thing polite,
I’m sorry, but I can’t come down — I’m dining out tonight!”

59. Don’t Look at Me

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dont look topDuring my last couple of decades of teaching, my friend Crystal got me into several situations I wouldn’t normally have experienced. She was a teacher of second language students whose dedication went above and beyond what anyone could expect. Because of my respect for her, and my affection for the students we shared, I occasionally found myself doing extra things to back her up.

For several years she had taught a summer writing program for new English learners which included a guest writer. Funding for the guest writer dried up and I was the only writer she knew, so I volunteered to step into that role.

I only had two pieces which were age appropriate, so the first year I taught a poetry lesson using There Am I (see post 8. Written on 9-11). I talked shortly about myself, read the poem, led them through brainstorming, and set them to writing a poem.

One lesson teachers have to learn is when to back off and shut up. I have aquired that skill, but it’s been hard for me. At the appropriate time, I sat quietly at the head of the table for fifteen minutes while they worked.

I knew some of these strudents from having them in large classes, but I did not know them well. Many of them I did not know at all. We had seen each other on campus, but they were sixth or seventh graders who had not reached me yet.

They were under my eye. That is a powerful phrase. They had to produce for a man they did not really know. If they had been students in my regular classroom it would have been easier, but not easy.

They had to write, under my eye, and then they had to submit what they wrote for judgement.

When I was a child, I loved school, but I have no difficulty understanding why so many hate it. As I watched these children try to write, I considered how I would have felt in their place. Then I took up paper and wrote a new poem while they worked.

dont look full

Technical note for fellow bloggers. Since the theme I use does not allow full control of vertical and horizontal spacing, this poem had to be written on a drawing program, converted into a JPEG, and inserted as if it were a picture.

58. God, if he were God

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170px-1099jerusalemMankind has problems, vast, complex and intractable. We pray for help from a wide variety of Gods. But God, if he were God, might well find that all of our problems stem from one excess, which we could correct ourselves, if we only recognized it.

The imagery, of course, comes from  growing up with thrice weekly sermons of hellfire and Armageddon ringing in my ears.

God, if he were God

God, if he were God,
Would call up troops of angels,
Asbestos wings and swords of fire.

And setting out to cleanse the Earth, would stamp
His heavy booted foot upon Jerusalem.
Where men of every race and creed
Cry out his name, while each the other rends.

There God, if he were God,
Would pause and see.

This crowded planet,
Multiplying sorrows,
Where every baby born,
Every ailment cured,
Every life revived,
Compounds the horror
Of numbers grown
Beyond endurance.

One alone is empty.
Two may reside in love,
Three, a family make,
And a hundred make a town.

But the numbers that beset this earth,
Create a taste of Hell.

56. Cinn Sings a Folksong

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Sometimes I write poetry as poetry. Sometimes I write it to fill story needs. This folksong was written for Valley of the Menhir to give Tidac and Cinnabar a romantic moment early in their courtship.

She showed him how to hold the thyril and how to strike the bass strings with his thumb while his fingers touched the trebles. His left hand stopped the trebles; the bass strings rang free. He tried manfully – which is to say, clumsily – to coordinate his two hands and was becoming frustrated when she stopped him with a giggle.

“You try too hard,” she said. “You aren’t trying to overcome an armed opponent; you are trying to coax the music out.”

Next he tried to pick out the simple lullaby which she sang over and over for him. He had not heard her sing before; her voice was small but sweet. After a time the tune came, and still later it came freely. Cinnabar kissed him noisily and congratulated him.

Then Cinnabar picked up the thyril and began to play. The melody was sad, but it brightened slowly. She raised his eyes to his and they were full of promise. She began to croon very softly:

*****

I reach for her, lying in her linen bed;

My fingers draw her forth into my arms.

Her rounded hip against my belly —

Her slender neck is in my hand.

My fingers touch and stroke her strings

     evoking music

          the thrumming that fills my loins

               the dry treble that excites the night.

Sometimes she is cold within my arms

And I must coax her voice to life.

Tonight she is fire,

Yielding to the motion of my hands.

My fingers touch and stroke her strings

     evoking magic

          the crying bittersweetness of the night

               wraps its hands around my heart.

*****

An ambiguous song, equally applicable to the thyril or the woman who held it. Whatever I am, or have been, or wish to be, Tidac thought, is now wound up with her.

Cinnabar smiled up at him and laid aside the thyril.

*****

I wrote that scene about 1978, and it remained in every revision until about 2010 when it was cut as a part of a major push to tighten up the pacing of the early part of the story. Too bad; I always liked it.

54. Bind Not, Be Not Bound

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In Blondel of Arden, now in Backfile, and in post 56, coming Thursday, I produced song lyrics to give my characters a chance to show their attitudes. In the novel Cyan, due out in spring, I went a step further by having the characters themselves write poetry. I’ll cover that in a future post.

Keir Delacroix is the groundside leader of the explorers on Cyan. Because of events in his childhood, he has an aversion to forcing others to his will – especially women. He spells this out in a poem.

Bind Not, Be Not Bound

Speak softly, draw near,
Touch but do not cling,
Bind not!

Share with me your love and laughter,
Smiles and frowns, days and nights.
As a lover, as a friend,
Mine, but free.
(As I am free.)

Remain as you wish,
Depart when you will.
Be not bound.

This attitude leads him to questionable decisions late in his year of exploration. Those decisions come back to haunt him when the explorers return to Earth, massively change the early days of colonization, and ultimately lead Keir to a broader view of human relationships.

41. Not Here

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220px-Allt_a'_MhuilinnAll this week’s posts revolve around Veteran’s Day. Although this poem has the feel of historical Scotland, its intentions are universal. Those who die young and those who grow old, each have their regrets, and their own story to tell.

Not Here

Not here,
Not in this ditch,
Not in this lowly, stinking place.
Not here,
Not in a skirmish,
Twenty men a side
and mine the only death!
To die here, so close to home,
Fallen from this great march
That will carry you to the lowlands.
Gone too soon;
You will forget me before the battle begins.

Not here,
Not where she can see me.
I was a man.
Her eyes told me that I was,
Her sidelong looks — her little smile;
If I had known . . . no!
If I had known, it would have made no difference.
The fire was kindled in us both.
I heard only her moans,
Not the footsteps of her husband.
Not here.
Not like this.
Not pinned to the ground by a peasant’s fork.
Ridicule!
A death so small that only breeds a laugh.

Not here.
Not on this great field of death,
Where my own passing is made small
By the multitude around me.
Here is no sadness for a dying friend;
Sadness is too small for this arena.
Though I lie speechless,
My mouth stopped with dung
From a thousand frightened horses,
Yet I cry out,
“My death is bigger than all this.
I am not just another soldier,
My eyes to be food for ravens,
My body food for worms.
My death is huge!
The whole earth should tremble,
The sky should darken,
As my sky darkens,
Darkens  . . .”

*****

Fifty years have passed
And only one still lives.
Alone and nearly sightless,
With withered limbs and palsied hands.
An old man now, forgotten, lost,
Since newer battles have been fought by younger men.

Alone tonight, his ancient wife
Full two seasons sleeping in the ground.
Narrow bed, in narrow room, and cold.
Yet, at midnight,
On this twenty-eighth of May.
He rises up and staggers to the door
To watch the ghosts go by.

Fifty years ago tonight they gathered
Around the peat fire in old Duncan’s house,
And laughed and drank and lied about their courage;
And when the morning came, gathered up their weapons,
And their youth in their own hands.

Reece, the first to fall, so tall;
His hair so yellow that would soon be red with blood.
Not ten miles from his home he fell, and was forgotten.
Then old Duncan died, a man made young,
For just a moment,
By a girl who laughed and flashed her eyes,
And cut his purse while her husband pinned him to the ground.
Then Sandor, Naill, Kenneth, and the rest;
Twenty-one went out
But only eight came home.

And now the ghosts have passed him by.
The old man hears
The echo of their feet
Trading softly on the turf.
Fading into distance, and he cries . . .

“All the good deaths
now are gone,
where is the glory
where is the song?”

32. Roses, out of the dry ground

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220px-Queen_Mary's_Gardens_P6110014

I like poetry a lot, but my personal taste pretty much stops with Frost and Yeats.

I like to pepper my novels with quotations from the Rubyiat, Masters, Tagore, and poetic scriptures from various religions. When an appropriate quotation is not available, I never hesitate to write a bit of poetry to develop a character or move a story along. Poetry written to purpose is not real poetry, but I will be including some of it in later posts as illustrations of the writing process.

Roses, out of the dry ground is a real poem, and the first I wrote as an adult.

Novels come over time, with a few flashes of inspiration and a lot of grinding work. I have enough novels waiting to keep me writing for the next three hundred years.

Poems only come when they come. For me that means rarely, but they are a treasured gift when they do come.

Roses, Out of the Dry Ground

The child fled
From harsh words and rough hands
And the uncaring glance that kills the soul,
To hide among the weeds and brambles,
The lizards and the hard cased beetles,
Where no voice comforts,
And no voice condemns.

There he found a rose, growing
          out of the dry ground.

Out of dirt, caked and broken,
Webbed down by spiders;
With dusty leaves,
          yet blooming.

The child reached out and touched a thorn
So gently that his finger did not bleed.
(For the child knew thorns)
Reached further, and touched the blossom, so gently
That its fragrance filled the desert air.

He sat long among the weeds
And gazed in wonder, that the rose,
So ragged, could still be sweet.

Never knowing,
          it was a mirror that he saw.

31. Discovering Khyyam

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412px-033-Earth-could-not-answer-nor-the-Seas-that-mourn-q75-829x1159My novel A Fond Farewell to Dying opens with a quatrain from the Rubyiat of Omar Khyyam.

Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing is certain – This life flies;
        One Thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has bloomed forever dies.
Khyyam/FitzGerald quatrain LXIII

It was the perfect setup for a book about people deeply aware of the fleetingness of life and trying to find their own kind of immortality.

Edward FitzGerald is the scholar whose translation of Khyyam is most widely known. He took a mass of unrelated quatrains, translated and arranged them, and gave them a unified voice. Although called a translator, he might better be called the co-author.

Khyyam was a Persian, but not a Muslim. He was one of the leaders of the old order, recently deposed by Muslim conquest. This accounts for the wine bibbing and the questioning attitude toward God, which otherwise would seem odd, even dangerous, among the Sultans, camels, turbans, and oases which fill the poems.

I first encountered Khyyam on a high school field trip to visit nearby University of Tulsa. I managed to sneak a moment in the university bookstore, and bought the most interesting paperback I could lay hands on quickly. It was the Rubiyat. I read it on the bus ride home and was immediately hooked.

The Rubiyat is the perfect book for a questioning young man just beginning to find his own voice and his own mind. Khyyam questions authority; in fact, he questions the ultimate authority, God himself. It is not a book for atheists though, unless they are simply looking for literary support for their opinions. Khyyam was no atheist. You can’t call God to task as he does, unless you believe in Him.

Oh, Thou who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken’d – Man’s forgiveness give – and take!
Khyyam/FitzGerald quatrain LXXXI

A book full of rebelliousness will catch a young man’s eye, but it is the beauty and wisdom in every line which makes it remain a treasure in later life.