Dover Beach

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

--Matthew Arnold

an august midnight in september

A couple nights ago I observed a minute spider traversing a web from the lamp upon my desk to another point near the desk's edge.  The spider was so tiny, a characteristic I note with interest because I also recently saw a very large, fast spider dance across the floor and underneath the desk.  Big and little, and both very spidery.

Watching the little spider maneuvering along it's delicate path reminded me of a poem by Thomas Hardy I very much enjoy.  Here it is:

An August Midnight

I

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter—winged, horned, and spined—
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While ‘mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands...

II

Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
—My guests besmear my new-penned line,
Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.
“God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

Voices From the Past

Several weeks ago, I was looking online for recitations of poems written by Alfred Lord Tennyson.  After finding a few I enjoyed, I stumbled upon something remarkable...a recording of Tennyson himself reading Charge of the Light Brigade.  At first, I wondered how this was even possible, given Tennyson's era.  Ulysses, one of his best-known poems, was written in 1833. Charge of the Light Brigade chronicled an episode in the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 during the Crimean War, and was published before the year of the battle was over.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I remembered learning in school about anthropologists in the early 1900s using wax cylinders to make ethnographic audio recordings.  While Tennyson died before the 20th century began, he did live until the last decade of the 19th century. As I found out, he was just in time to be alive during the first recordings of sound. Thanks to a charitable post-war effort (more on that later) he was recorded in 1890, reading one of his well-known poems.

There's quite a bit of information available online concerning the development and history of this technology, and it makes for an interesting tale.  A very brief and incomplete summary goes something like this: Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, utilizing tin cylinders that would soon evolve, with significant development by Alexander Graham Bell and his associates at the Volta Laboratory, into the wax cylinders famously used to make several recordings around the turn of the century, including Tennyson's recitation.

How Tennyson's recording came about is itself quite an interesting tidbit of history. While trying to learn about this, I read that thirty-five years after the famous Battle of Balaclava, many of the survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade were impoverished and seemingly forgotten. Somehow, this came to light and, during the subsequent public condemnation, a magazine initiated a charitable fund for the veterans.

Charge of the Light Brigade (William Simpson, 1855)

Three recordings were made for this philanthropic endeavor, a 19th century antecedent to We Are the World: Tennyson's recitation of his poem about the charge; a short speech by Florence Nightingale, who rose to fame during the Crimean War; and a rendition of the bugle charge from the battle performed by Martin Landfried, a veteran of Balaclava.

All three recordings have survived to the present day.  Listening to them is a rare treat; give it a try for an unexpected window into the past.

Martin Landfried playing the bugle charge as heard at the Battle of Balaclava.
Florence Nightingale speaking.
Alfred Lord Tennyson reciting Charge of the Light Brigade.


Notes:

The text of Landfriend's comments before playing the bugle is as follows:

“I am trumpeter Landfried, one of the surviving trumpeters of the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. I am now going to sound the bugle that was sounded at Waterloo, and sound the charge that was sounded at Balaclava on that very same bugle; the 25th of October, 1854.”

Martin Landfried (William Avenell & Co, Brighton)

It seems there is some confusion concerning the bugler's name: the British Library Sound Archive records it as Martin Lanfried, while he is referred to as Kenneth Landfrey by the Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University.  Other online sources record various spellings of his name.  However, an authoritative biography from a nonprofit historical organization in Britain, maintains his name was Martin Leonard Landfried. They have quite a lot of information about him, including that he was wounded in the arm at the Battle of Balaclava, but continued the charge until his horse was killed.  He wound up being sent to the barracks-turned-hospital at which Florence Nightingale treated the war's injured.

***

Here is the text of Florence Nightingale's recording:

“When I am no longer even a memory, just a name, I hope my voice may perpetuate the great work of my life. God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava and bring them safe to shore. Florence Nightingale.” (There were two recordings of this; perhaps one was a rehearsal.)

Florence Nightingale

***

And here is Charge of the Light Brigade (it is difficult to make out all the words in the recording without referencing the text):

Half a league, half a league,
  Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?  
Not tho’ the soldier knew
  Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:  
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them  
  Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell  
  Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
  All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke  
  Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
  Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,    
Cannon behind them
  Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well  
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
  Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?  
O the wild charge they made!
  All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
  Noble six hundred!

Opening Lines

Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Achilles' anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Acheans loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men--carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.

--from The Iliad

first lines of All That's Past

Very old are the woods;
     And the buds that break
Out of the briar's boughs,
     When the March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are
     Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
     Roves back the rose.

--Walter de la Mare

A poem (#1052)

I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks
And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.

--Emily Dickinson

The above version is the one I read in a book at home; however, I've come across a slightly different version that seems more like Emily Dickinson's writing to me and appears to be the original.  I wonder who changed it and when.  I suppose the edited poem above was probably considered more readable because of the substitution of two less common words in the original (billows and checks), and the elimination of Dickinson's unique punctuation and capitalization.

I guess the word "checks" as used below was a term used at the time to refer to railway tickets. Knowing that usage helps with understanding the stanza.

While I was just looking for different versions of this poem, I came across something really neat--an image of the original manuscript in Dickinson's hand!

Here, then, is the poem:

I never saw a Moor --
I never saw the Sea --
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.

I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven --
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given --

[composed circa 1865; first published 1890]

T'ang poetry

Recently I was reading a book about Li Po and Tu Fu (now more commonly referred to in the West as Li Bai and Du Fu).  It is a collection of several poems translated by Arthur Cooper, with lots of historical and biographical background included, as well as notes about the individual poems.  I love a book like this--there are many layers to it and it is a joy to read.

Here is an excerpt from a poem by Tu Fu called Night Thoughts Afloat:

Drifting, drifting,
what am I more than
A single gull
between sky and earth?

verse LV

I muse, but in my musings I recall
The days of my iniquity; we're all--
An arrow shot across the wilderness,
Somewhither, in the wilderness must fall.

--from The Luzumiyat by Abul 'Ala Al-Ma'arri (973--1057 A.D.)

a poem by D. H. Lawrence

Piano

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling 
   strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as 
   she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cozy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamor
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the 
   past.

1918 

poems

If you were to suggest a poem or three to someone, what would you recommend?

the Century's corpse

Below is a poem by Thomas Hardy, famous for his novels set in fictional Wessex.  The first book I read by Hardy was  Jude the Obscure.  I read it sometime after high school, on a recommendation (thanks for that, by the way!).  The character of “Father Time”, and one particular scene involving him, remains lodged in my memory, as it does for many who read it, I imagine.  So do some other elements of the plot and feel of the book…Jude studying so hard at his little desk and his Spartan-like commitment, images of stone-masonry, his night in the pub, frustration, and sadness.  I remember a wagon pulling away from a stone building in the countryside.  That’s a bit vague but, then, I read the book years ago.  Sometimes just images and feelings remain when looking back on something one has read.

I took a trip to the dark and dripping British Isles not too long after reading that novel, and I brought with a little book that contained poetry by Thomas Hardy.  It was one of those Penguin editions called Penguin ‘60s, I think.  They are very small, and fit easily in a pocket, so they make excellent traveling companions.  I read and reread those poems.  I particularly remember one about three companions traveling across the moor.  By the time I got back home, the book was a mangled, crinkled mess.

I’ve read some other stuff written by him since, and enjoyed it.  During a recent conversation, Jen mentioned the following poem.  I have a collection of poetry with me while I am away from home, and I flipped through it looking for the Thomas Hardy section.  It does have several poems by Hardy but, surprisingly, doesn’t include The Darkling Thrush.  Anyway, here it is.  Enjoy.

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

      When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

      The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

      Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

      The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

      The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

      Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware.

The World Is Too Much with Us; Late and Soon

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!
This 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 wreathèd horn.

--William Wordsworth (published 1807)

a poem by rainer maria rilke

Early Spring

Harshness gone.  And sudden mitigation
laid upon the field's uncovered grey.
Little runnels change their intonation.
Tentative caresses stray

round the still earth from immensity.
Roads run far into the land, foretelling.
Unexpectedly you find it, welling
upwards in the empty tree.

translated by J.B. Leishman

a poem by matsuo basho

A monk sips morning tea,
it's quiet,
the chrysanthemum's flowering.


Translated by Robert Hass

autumn

Under the harvest moon,

When the soft silver

Drips shimering

Over the garden nights,

Death, the gray mocker,

Comes and whispers to you

As a beautiful friend

Who remembers.

--Carl Sandburg

Yesterday I harvested almost all of our remaining garden.  We had harvested a bunch a few weeks ago in advance of a few days of freezing temperatures, but decided to leave and cover a lot of crops: beets, turnips, kohlrabi, and a few swiss chard plants.  It turned out to be a good decision; we had a few weeks of nice weather and things grew some more.

Now, with more freezing weather and snow predicted (and it has snowed!), we decided to get most everything out of there.  I covered a few kohlrabi that I felt were just too small to pick and some more recently planted radishes and spinach.  We’re supposed to get another week or two of warm weather after this cold front moves through, so we’ll see how the remaining plants do.

In addition to what we’ve already harvested and eaten or freezed, we got about 2 ½ gallons of carrots, a good pile of chard, a 5 gallon bucket of beets, turnips, and their greens, and a 3 gallon bucket of kohlrabi.  We’d already gathered about that much kohlrabi, and I’ve been eating them almost every day.  They’re delicious and remind me of being a little kid, when my grandparents grew rows and rows of them.  I’d bring them to grade school for lunch, and kids would wonder at the smell of them.

All in all, I think this has been one of our best gardening years.  Except for tomatoes.  We had several very vigorous seedlings that we got started very early.  It really seemed we were in for a record tomato crop—the plants took off and grew quickly and strongly, but then, one by one, they succumbed to some sort of mosaic virus.  In the end, we got very few tomatoes.  Other than that, though, I’m really pleased with how well the garden did.  We harvested about three gallons of hot peppers…after processing a bunch of those for freezing, my fingers burned all evening.  The next morning I stuck a finger near my eye and was quickly burning there, too.  Thanks to our friends who gave us a couple of plants, we grew and ate several eggplants this year.  They grew surprisingly well and offered a lot of fruit.  Our first planting of green beans didn’t yield all that much; the varieties we planted just didn’t do that well.  We did a second, late planting that did very well.  I’d like to grow enough green beans to pickle and can some next time.  Spinach and lettuce did very well, too.

And there you have it—a garden update and year-end summary, of sorts.

Here is a picture of the main part of our garden back in June.  We also have two smaller areas that we garden in (where the peppers, eggplant, more spinach and lettuce, strawberries, and herbs are).  We've also made a little fence and gate to go around the garden; you can see some of the fence posts in this photograph.

do

do dah
do dah
the grass is dead
and the night is cold

do dah do dah
ever think
you'd be
where you are?

H.R. Lillentoff

First Poem

It should be something magnificent,
I know.
It should be something hard and real.
It should be a polished stone,
smooth beneath a cold river.

It is old nails and bits of electrical wire.
It's the chalky residue of drywall dust.
It's a bloody nose in the dry morning.
Noodles in a pot and a ripe plum.

--Roger Huntington

Kitchen Light, Friday Night

The lights are all turned off
I’m sitting at the table, looking at the facebook photos of
Old classmates, acquaintances, and friends of friends
I still know what my closest friends are doing
I see them very occasionally
So I don’t look at their photos
Instead I see people I don’t think about often
But were part of my reality back then
I suppose they are the same people, biologically speaking
But I can’t even remember myself,
Let alone what they were

--Jim Rasdul

waterpath

I loved you, so I constructed
a riverbed of stones and broken glass.
I built it so we could walk unhindered among the
reflected sunlight and under waxy cottonwood leaves.
As you see, the limbs tremble in the breeze. The sun
glints from veined leaf, water-worn stone, and fragments of colored bottles.
We walk hand in hand. The air is right, the light is the same. Our hearts breathe
together. All life, all memories, come unbidden and unfold before us. What we were
answers to who we are. These images pass on either side, like a grove of planted trees.
We move through and continue. We reach a spot beyond which the riverbed continues but
its form is foreign to me. I did not build it, and do not know its lay. The stones and the glass
are here. And the leaves, too, in their greenness.

iron and breath

(poem for Tadeusz)

You said: “we’ll
leave behind
iron scrap.”
I read your story
sitting next to a heater
on a bright winter afternoon
seventy years later.
I will use my teeth and
my fingers like claws.
When you awake wherever you are
look around and breathe deep.
Then examine the sky.
Sit against something solid
and please think of me reading your words.
There is something true among humans.