Poem # 4: To Jane

For our fourth poem, I have chosen one from an author few at the college like. In fact, I consider it part of my life mission to convert Dr. Shank's from her scathing sentiments concerning him. That's right; I'm speaking of Percy Shelley.

"To Jane", by He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Except-For-5-Seconds-Ago-When-I-Did-Above-In-The-1st-Paragraph.

The keen stars were twinkling
And the fair moon was rising among them,
Dear Jane:
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them
Again.
As the moon's soft splendor
O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven
Is thrown,
So your voice most tender
To the strings without soul had then given
Its own.

The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later,
Tonight;
No leaf will be shaken
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter
Delight.
Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.

I DARE you to tell me it's not a good poem. Just try me.
Read, Kindly Light...

Poem # 3: Janet Waking

Now for another favorite:

"Janet Waking", by John Crowe Ransom.

Beautifully Janet slept
Till it was deeply morning. She woke them
And thought about her dainty-feathered hen,
To see how it had kept.

One kiss she gave her mother,
Only a small one gave she to her daddy
Who would have kissed each curl of his shining baby;
No kiss at all for her brother.

"Old Chucky, old Chucky!" she cried,
Running on little pink feet upon the grass
To Chucky's house, and listening. But alas,
Her Chucky had died.

It was a transmogrifying bee
Came droning down on Chucky's bald old head
And sat and put the poison. It scarcely bled,
But how exceedingly

And purply did the knot
Swell with the venom and communicate
Its rigor. Now the poor comb stood up straight.
But Chucky did not.

So there was Janet
Kneeling on the wet grass, crying her brown hen
(Translated far beyond the prayers of men)
To rise and walk upon it.

And weeping fast as she had breath
Janet implored us, "Wake her from her sleep!"
And would not be instructed in how deep
Was the forgetful kingdom of Death.

Hmm. I'm beginning to see a pattern in the poems I've chosen. What is it? DEATH.
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Poem # 2: Losses

It's time for poem numero duo!

"Losses", by Randall Jarrell:

It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)

In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and worke up
One morning, over England, operational.

It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, "Our casualties were low."

The said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.

It was not dying --no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: "Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?"

(It's another one Mr. Lacey introduced me to.)

Toodles.
Read, Kindly Light...

Ah, Poetry

They tell me (and by "they" I mean Whitney Matthison) that April is 'National Poetry Month', or some such. I'm proud to say I am one of the few [the proud, the Marines!] who still believe in poetry. Thus, I have decided that I shall try and post a GOOD poem every few days until the end of April. (Feel free to critique my choices...)

So, to kick off things, here is an old favorite of mine. It is a traditional Scottish ballad called "TWA CORBIES":

AS I was walking all alane
I heard twa corbies making a mane:
The tane unto the tither did say,
'Whar sall we gang and dine the day?'

'—In behint yon auld fail dyke 5
I wot there lies a new-slain knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there
But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair.

'His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame, 10
His lady 's ta'en anither mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.

'Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue e'en:
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair 15
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.

'Mony a one for him maks mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane:
O'er his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.' 20

GLOSS: corbies] ravens. fail] turf. hause] neck. theek] thatch.
From the always wonderful collection at Bartleby

Also, feel free to suggest poems for me to post, especially if you have written your own. At the end of the month, when I have exhausted all the good ones, I might resort to my own sorry verse. (Consider yourself warned!)

Ciao.
~tylooh~
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