Author Archives: davidjsutton

Week 338: North Haven, by Elizabeth Bishop

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Elizabeth Bishop wrote this elegy for her longtime friend and correspondent Robert Lowell after Lowell’s death in 1977; she herself died two years later. I think that at least back then Lowell enjoyed the huger reputation, but I have to say that I have always found Bishop’s poems a lot more satisfying than Lowell’s, in much the same way as I find Ted Hughes’s more satisfying than Sylvia Plath’s. I guess I like there to be a balance in the work between the inner world of the poet and the outer world of the independently real – call it a passion for the empirically observed – and I find that balance, that passion, more in Bishop and Hughes than in Lowell and Plath. 

But anyway, to the elegy… North Haven is an island community in Maine where towards the end of her life Bishop often spent the summer.

North Haven

(in memoriam: Robert Lowell)

I can make out the rigging of a schooner
a mile off, I can count
the new cones on the spruce. It is so still
the pale bay wears a milky skin; the sky
no clouds except for one long, carded horse’s tail.

The islands haven’t shifted since last summer,
even if I like to pretend they have
drifting, in a dreamy sort of way,
a little north, a little south, or sidewise
and that they’re free within the blue frontiers of bay.

This month our favorite one is full of flowers:
Buttercups, Red Clover, Purple Vetch,
Hawkweed still burning, Daisies pied, Eyebright,
the Fragrant Bedstraw’s incandescent stars,
and more, returned, to paint the meadows with delight.

The Goldfinches are back, or others like them,
and the White-throated Sparrow’s five-note song,
pleading and pleading, brings tears to the eyes.
Nature repeats herself, or almost does:
repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise.

Years ago, you told me it was here
(in 1932?) you first ‘discovered girls’
and learned to sail, and learned to kiss.
You had ‘such fun’, you said, that classic summer.
(‘Fun’–it always seemed to leave you at a loss…)

You left North Haven, anchored in its rock,
afloat in mystic blue… And now -– you’ve left
for good. You can’t derange, or re-arrange,
your poems again. (But the Sparrows can their song.)
The words won’t change again. Sad friend, you cannot change.

Elizabeth Bishop

Week 337: The Joys of the Road, by Bliss Carman

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This piece by the Canadian poet Bliss Carman (1862-1929) is one of my very early poetic likes, met with in some school anthology around the age of eleven when I had a very romantic idea of life on the road and tended to answer, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, ‘A tramp’, which did not go down well with my responsible adults but at least was one up in terms of respectability and earnings potential from my other standard answer at the time, ‘A poet’. I was so taken with the poem that I went to the local library to look for more by Carman and, finding nothing available, boldly requested an inter-library loan, braving the indignation of the librarian, who was very much of the old school and really did not like members of the public coming into his library and taking away his books, let alone demanding expensive special services. But a small volume did in due course arrive; sadly I found nothing further in it that really took my fancy. Sorry, librarian.

The Joys of the Road

Now the joys of the road are chiefly these:
A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees;

A vagrant’s morning wide and blue,
In early fall, when the wind walks too;

A shadowy highway cool and brown,
Alluring up and enticing down

From rippled water to dappled swamp,
From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

The outward eye, the quiet will,
And the striding heart from hill to hill;

The tempter apple over the fence;
The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince;

The palish asters along the wood,–
A lyric touch of solitude;

An open hand, an easy shoe,
And a hope to make the day go through,–

Another to sleep with, and a third
To wake me up at the voice of a bird;

A scrap of gossip at the ferry;
A comrade neither glum nor merry,

Who never defers and never demands,
But, smiling, takes the world in his hands, –

Seeing it good as when God first saw
And gave it the weight of his will for law.

And oh, the joy that is never won,
But follows and follows the journeying sun,

By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream,
A will-o’-the-wind, a light-o’-dream,

The racy smell of the forest loam,
When the stealthy sad-heart leaves go home;

The broad gold wake of the afternoon;
The silent fleck of the cold new moon;

The sound of the hollow sea’s release
From stormy tumult to starry peace;

With only another league to wend;
And two brown arms at the journey’s end!

These are the joys of the open road –
For him who travels without a load.

Bliss Carman

Week 336: Afraid, by Walter De La Mare + Little Elegy, by X.J.Kennedy

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This week two elegies for small girl children, the first Christian and grave, the second secular and almost playful, but both, I think, quite touching.

Afraid

Here lies, but seven years old, our little maid
Once of the darkness, oh, so sore afraid!
Light of the World, remember that small fear,
And when nor moon nor stars do shine, draw near.

Walter De La Mare

Little Elegy

Here lies resting, out of breath,
Out of turns, Elizabeth,
Whose quicksilver toes not quite
Cleared the whirring edge of night.

Earth whose circles round us skim
Till they catch the lightest limb,
Shelter now Elizabeth
And for her sake trip up death.

X.J.Kennedy

Week 335: Thomas the Rhymer, by Anon

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This magnificent and magical ballad has a habit of popping up at odd places in our culture: for example, it is said to have given Washington Irving, who heard it on a visit to Sir Walter Scott, the idea for ‘Rip van Winkle’, it inspired a bravura reworking by Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Last Rhyme of True Thomas’, and a setting of it by Steeleye Span was chosen by the late and much missed Terry Pratchett as the one disc out of the eight that he would take to a desert island: he described it as having a ‘twilight atmosphere’.

And just a quick note for anyone interested: my own ‘Collected Poems’ is now available from Greenwich Exchange, see http://www.greenex.co.uk/ge_record_detail.asp?ID=191 For more details see ‘News’.

Thomas the Rhymer

True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie he spied wi’ his e’e;
And there he saw a ladye bright
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

Her skirt was o’ the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o’ the velvet fyne;
At ilka tett o’ her horse’s mane,
Hung fifty siller bells and nine.

True Thomas he pu’d aff his cap,
And louted low down on his knee:
‘Hail to thee, Mary, Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth could never be.’

‘O no, O no, Thomas,’ she said,
‘That name does not belang to me;
I’m but the Queen o’ fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.

‘Harp and carp, Thomas,’ she said;
‘Harp and carp along wi’ me;
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
Sure of your bodie I will be.’

‘Betide me weal, betide me woe,
That weird shall never daunten me.’
Syne he has kiss’d her rosy lips,
All underneath the Eildon Tree.

‘Now ye maun go wi’ me,’ she said,
‘True Thomas, ye maun go wi’ me;
And ye maun serve me seven years,
Thro’ weal or woe as may chance to be.’

She’s mounted on her milk-white steed,
She’s ta’en true Thomas up behind;
And aye, whene’er her bridle rang,
The steed gaed swifter than the wind.

O they rade on, and farther on,
The steed gaed swifter than the wind;
Until they reach’d a desert wide,
And living land was left behind.

‘Light down, light down now, true Thomas,
And lean your head upon my knee;
Abide ye there a little space,
And I will show you ferlies three.

‘O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset wi’ thorns and briers?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
Though after it but few inquires.

‘And see ye not yon braid, braid road,
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the Road to Heaven.

‘And see ye not yon bonny road
That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the Road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night maun gae.

‘But, Thomas, ye sall haud your tongue,
Whatever ye may hear or see;
For speak ye word in Elfyn-land,
Ye’ll ne’er win back to your ain countrie.’

O they rade on, and farther on,
And they waded rivers abune the knee;
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.

It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,
They waded thro’ red blude to the knee;
For a’ the blude that’s shed on the earth
Rins through the springs o’ that countrie.

Syne they came to a garden green,
And she pu’d an apple frae a tree:
‘Take this for thy wages, true Thomas;
It will give thee the tongue that can never lee.’

‘My tongue is my ain,’ true Thomas he said;
‘A gudely gift ye wad gie to me!
I neither dought to buy or sell
At fair or tryst where I might be.

‘I dought neither speak to prince or peer,
Nor ask of grace from fair ladye!’—
‘Now haud thy peace, Thomas,’ she said,
‘For as I say, so must it be.’

He has gotten a coat of the even cloth,
And a pair o’ shoon of the velvet green;
And till seven years were gane and past,
True Thomas on earth was never seen.

Anon

Week 334: Grove Hill, by Seamus Heaney

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This poem, which is part of a longer sequence, is a good illustration of Seamus Heaney’s gift for moving from the private and particular memory or observation to a moving statement of the universal. The unnamed ‘them’ in the third line are, of course, his parents, who are brought to the mind of a convalescent Heaney by the sound of a boiler starting up – I guess we all have particular sounds that trigger memories of childhood, we lived on a hill and mine would be the sound of the wind on autumn nights, hooting and snuffling outside the house like an invisible animal trying to find a way in.

Grove Hill

Now the oil-fired heating boiler comes to life
Abruptly, drowsily, like the timed collapse
Of a sawn down tree, I imagine them

In summer season, as it must have been,
And the place, it dawns on me,
Could have been Grove Hill before the oaks were cut,

Where I’d often stand with them on airy Sundays
Shin-deep in hilltop bluebells, looking out
At Magherafelt’s four spires in the distance.

Too late, alas, now for the apt quotation
About a love that’s proved by steady gazing
Not at each other but in the same direction.

Seamus Heaney

Week 333: The Last Word, by Matthew Arnold

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I don’t know whether Matthew Arnold had any particular debate or personage in mind when he wrote this spirited poem. It is very Victorian in its moral certainty and absolutism. Maybe there were issues and principles in his day that didn’t get lost in a maze of amendments to amendments. But Arnold (1822-1888), son of the Rugby headmaster, poet, critic and inspector of schools, is a bit of a contradiction. His best known poem ‘Dover Beach’ is much more about the loss of moral certitude, yet he had the breezy self-confidence, not to mention cultural arrogance, to suggest that it really was time Welsh people were persuaded or constrained to abandon their language, looking forward to a future in which ‘the difference in language between England and Wales should be effaced, an event which is socially and politically so desirable.’ Yet at the same time he was one the first English writers to take an interest in that marvellous collection of early Welsh prose tales, the ‘Mabinogion’, even if he went a bit far in seeing it as a ‘ruin of antiquity’. As with many Victorians, definitely a bit of cultural dissonance going on.

The Last Word

Creep into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset! all stands fast.
Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Let them have it how they will!
Thou art tired: best be still.

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged – and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall! 

Matthew Arnold

 

Week 332: By The Exeter River, by Donald Hall

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A grimly memorable little poem by the American poet Donald Hall (1928-2018). I particularly admire the skill with which it replicates the traditional ballad technique, found in e.g. ‘Edward’ (Child 13), of allowing a shocking narrative to unfold simply through dialogue.

By The Exeter River

‘What is it you’re mumbling, old Father, my Dad?
Come drink up your soup and I’ll put you to bed.’

‘By the Exeter River, by the river, I said.’

‘Stop dreaming of rivers, old Father, my Dad,
Or save all your dreaming till you’re tucked up in bed.’

‘It was cold by the river. We came in a sled.’

It’s colder to think of, old Father, my Dad,
Than the blankets and bolsters and pillows of bed.’

‘We took off his dress and the cap from his head.’

‘Undressed in the winter, old Father, my Dad?
What could you be thinking? let’s get off to bed.’

‘And Sally, poor Sally, I reckon is dead.’

‘Was she an old sweetheart, old Father, my Dad?
Now lean on my shoulder and come up to bed.’

‘We drowned your half-brother. I remember we did.’

Donald Hall

Week 331: Women He Liked, by Edward Thomas

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Another of those Edward Thomas poems that may seem to be about nothing much – a clump of nettles in a corner of a farmyard, a bundle of faggots, or in this case a lost path under trees – but which root themselves in the mind because they themselves are rooted in a world half-forgotten yet still obscurely important to us.

I am not sure about the gnomic line ‘To name a thing beloved man sometimes fails’. It’s a good line, but is it actually true? It seems to me that naming a thing is an essential part of the love act, and what we don’t name we don’t notice, let alone love. But if one is moved now and then to query a poet’s assertion, that is merely another way of engaging in that ongoing dialogue between the living and the dead that we call reading.

Stormcock is another name for the missel-thrush.

Women He Liked

Women he liked, did shovel-bearded Bob,
Old Farmer Hayward of the Heath, but he
Loved horses. He himself was like a cob,
And leather-coloured. Also he loved a tree.

For the life in them he loved most living things,
But a tree chiefly. All along the lane
He planted elms where now the stormcock sings
That travellers hear from the slow-climbing train.

Till then the track had never had a name
For all its thicket and the nightingales
That should have earned it. No one was to blame.
To name a thing beloved man sometimes fails.

Many years since, Bob Hayward died, and now
None passes there because the mist and rain
Out of the elms have turned the lane to slough
And gloom, the name alone survives, Bob’s Lane.

Edward Thomas

Week 330: Jesus and his Mother, by Thom Gunn

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This is a relatively early poem by Thom Gunn (1929-2004), first published in 1954. While it is very different in subject-matter from his later, American-based work, it shows the same discipline and command of form that characterised his poetry throughout his life. Despite the narrative, it does not strike me as primarily a religious poem: I see it as more about the estrangement that must almost inevitably grow between any child consumed with a sense of mission and uncomprehending parents who simply wish it to have a normal life of uncomplicated contentment.

Jesus and his Mother

My only son, more God’s than mine,
Stay in this garden ripe with pears.
The yielding of their substance wears
A modest and contented shine,
And when they weep with age, not brine
But lazy syrup are their tears.
‘I am my own and not my own’.

He seemed much like another man,
That silent foreigner who trod
Outside my door with lily rod:
How could I know what I began
Meeting the eyes more furious than
The eyes of Joseph, those of God?
I was my own and not my own.

And who are these twelve labouring men?
I do not understand your words:
I taught you speech, we named the birds
You marked their big migrations then
Like any child. So turn again
To silence from the place of crowds.
‘I am my own and not my own’.

Why are you sullen when I speak?
Here are your tools, the saw and knife
And hammer on your bench. Your life
Is measured here in week and week
Planed as the furniture you make,
And I will teach you like a wife
To be my own and all my own.

Who like an arrogant wind blown
Where he may please, needs no content?
Yet I remember how you went
To speak with scholars in furred gown.
I hear an outcry in the town;
Who carries that dark instrument?
‘One all his own and not his own’.

Treading the green and nimble sward
I stare at a strange shadow thrown.
Are you the boy I bore alone,
No doctor near to cut the cord?
I cannot reach to call you Lord,
Answer me as my only son.
‘I am my own and not my own’.

Thom Gunn

Week 329: When I asked for fish, by Carl Sandburg

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‘Beautiful’ seems an odd epithet to apply to a poem about a man eating eggs in a fish restaurant that’s run out of fish, but I do find this piece by the American poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) beautiful in its oddball way. Perhaps it is that ‘shining breast of the Ohio river’, perhaps it is just its quiet celebration of a commonplace moment of contemplative aliveness, but anyway, I like it. It’s from a 1928 collection called ‘Good Morning, America’.

When I asked for fish in the restaurant facing the Ohio river, with fish signs and fish pictures all over the wooden, cracked frame of the fish shack, the young man said ‘Come around next Friday – the fish is all gone today’.

So I took eggs, fried, straight up, one side, and he murmured, humming, looking out at the shining breast of the Ohio river, ‘and the next is something else, and the next is something else’.

The customer next was a hoarse roustabout, handling nail kegs on a steamboat all day, asking for ‘three eggs, sunny side up, three, nothing less, shake us a mean pan of eggs’.

And while we sat eating eggs, looking at the shining breast of the Ohio river in the evening lights, he had his thoughts and I had mine thinking how the French who found the Ohio river named it La Belle Rivière meaning a woman easy to look at.

Carl Sandburg