Places, Loved Ones - Philip Larkin

The fifth selection by Philip Larkin and the one that most disturbs the Romantic - capital "R", not lower case - in me. His place and talent in the 20th century English poets' pantheon is secure, but I venture that his private life and "success" in love relationships was neither carefree or smooth.  His "love" poems, while personally affecting - in particular the truths in "Talking In Bed" - require thought, reflection, and multiple readings.  They manage to get to the heart, but not by a straight path.   This one "bothers" me the most.  It has some lines, like the last four in the first verse,  that are just perfection in a few words.  And the entire second verse.  But then, he smacks you with the concluding verse, which makes you ponder.... everything.  Brilliant, effective, and ...... frightening.  (Your thoughts?)
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Places, Loved Ones

                         

No, I have never found

The place where I could say

This is my proper ground,

Here I shall stay;

Nor met that special one

Who has an instant claim

On everything I own

Down to my name

To find such seems to prove

You want no choice in where

To build, or whom to love;

You ask them to bear

You off irrevocably,

So that it’s not your fault

Should the town turn dreary,

The girl, a dolt.

Yet, having missed them, you’re

Bound, none the less, to act

As if what you settled for

Mashed you, in fact;

And wiser to keep away

From thinking you still might trace

Uncalled-for to this day

Your person, your place.

                                                              Philip Larkin - English

No Road - Philip Larkin

Another by Philip Larkin.  (Bio info, etc. with earlier ones.  Click on "Talking in Bed": it will speak to you.)   Larkin is known for his control of form and language: consider how the extended metaphor in this one is so concisely written.   And how much is dealt with in so few lines.  The first verse illustrates that quote from the French philosopher Blase Pascal: "The heart has its reasons, of which Reason knows nothing about", that the best rational decisions about a relationship don't stand a chance against what the heart feels.  The second verse is a warning that, when the traffic is one way, even that heart can only take so much neglect before the artifices of Reason will win.  The closing verse is a peek into a future that can yet be prevented....but only if the warning is heeded and the effort to keep the road open is equal and mutual.  The last four lines have always made me shudder: so powerful in conveying the real pain but false power in the outcome..
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No Road

Since we agreed to let the road between us
Fall to disuse,
And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us,
And turned all time’s eroding agents loose,
Silence, and space, and strangers – our neglect
Has not had much effect.

Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown;
No other change.
So clear it stands, so little overgrown,
Walking that way tonight would not seem strange,
And still would be allowed. A little longer,
And time will be the stronger,

Drafting a world where no such road will run
From you to me;
To watch that world come up like a cold sun,
Rewarding others, is my liberty.
Not to prevent it is my will’s fulfillment.
Willing it, my ailment.

                                                                                              Philip Larkin

Sonnet XIV - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Another poet that needs little introduction, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), became one of the most popular English poets of the Victorian Era, to the point of being considered for the Poet Laureate post (which went to Tennyson...).  Self-schooled in the classics and from a family that fell from wealth into genteel middle-class after financial set-backs, she also had a medical afflictions that made her an invalid and recluse for a time.  Death by drowning of a beloved brother did not help her emotional state.  Almost 40 when she met Robert Browning, he was the love of her life and the inspiration for "Sonnets from the Portuguese", which cemented her fame and popularity.  Her poems on the themes of social injustice and women's roles were also well-received, though her popularity declined after her death.  Her reputation is now mostly based on the love sonnets.  Compare and contrast this one to the one from Shakespeare (yesterday's post).  His is on "eternal love"; hers on what makes it eternal.  To me, it's the best answer for those who keep asking "Why do you love me?" Or "What do you love about me?".  It's always a mystery that defies dissection, a dissection that shouldn't be attempted in the first place!
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Sonnet XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile – her look- her way
Of speaking gently, - for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day” –
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, - and love so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry, -
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

                                                                                   Elizabeth Barrett Browning - English

Sonnet LV - Shakespeare

(Is it REALLY necessary that Shakespeare needs an introduction??  By me???  I didn't think so!)  Here, after 100+ poems by others, the first one by Shakespeare.  "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (Sonnet XVIII) is better known, but I like this one for its topic.  Rather than praising her beauty , he speaks to the immortality of his love for her through the existence of the poem.  What a gift!
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Sonnet LV

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this pow’rful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; our praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.


                                                                                 William Shakespeare - English

Love - Philip Larkin

And a third one by Larkin.... If you've read the other two posted here, you may be seeing a pattern to his love poetry: a voice that is a bit sour on the whole thing, a little skeptical.... yet with a grudging hopefulness that comes through (at least in my read).  Yet, always, incisive observations from his dissection of what it all means.
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Love

The difficult part of love
Is being selfish enough,
Is having the blind persistence
To upset an existence
Just for your own sake.
What cheek it must take.

And then the unselfish side –
How can you be satisfied,
Putting someone else first
so that you come off worst?
My life is for me.
As well ignore gravity.

Still, vicious or virtuous,
Love suits most of us.
Only the bleeder found
Selfish this wrong way round
Is ever wholly rebuffed,
And he can get stuffed.

Philip Larkin

"Love, we must part now"

Only the second by Larkin here - you MUST read the other one, as it is one of my all-time favorites.  To have such a command of structure - ever try writing a sonnet? no? TRY! - and still be creative is something I envy.  I like the closing lines, not of ships "passing in the night", but deliberately sailing apart, at dawn "...wet with light.." What a line! How beautiful.... How sad....  And, of course, my reason for selecting it: how unlike reality.
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“Love, we must part now”

Love, we must part now: do not let it be
Calamitous and bitter. In the past
There has been too much moonlight and self-pity:
Let us have done with it: for now at last
Never has sun more boldly paced the sky,
Never were hearts more eager to be free,
To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I
No longer hold them; we are husks, that see
The grain going forward to a different use.

There is regret. Always, there is regret.
But it is better that our lives unloose,
As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,
Break from an estuary with their courses set,
And waving part, and waving drop from sight.

                                                                                                    Philip Larkin - English

Dover Beach - Matthew Arnold

Today and tomorrow (Saturday's) poems need to be read together, as tomorrow's is a poem "about" today's.  Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888) was one of 19th century England's best known social critics and poets.  He worked as an inspector of schools, but was also a professor of poetry at Oxford, and traveled fairly widely, including to America, to lecture on contemporary education and democracy.  Arnold's poetic legacy is more based on his place in addressing the intrusion - and effect - of all the societal changes in mid-19th century-onward England, than in poems that were purely "art".  He believed that poetry should reflect a philosophy.  (I believe a good poem helps us access emotions and understandings about ourselves and those emotions.)  Some regard him as the transition from Victorian Romanticism to Modernism.  But that's for literary critics.  I am not partial to him at all and actually learned of his poetry through tomorrow's poem by Anthony Hecht referencing this one.  "Dover Beach", written in 1867, has those literary allusions that were expected to be known and understood by readers.  It also has a self-pitying tone and understated emotion, which is what tomorrow's poem skewers.  It was very popular and has been cited by others in later creative works, including "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.   The last lines of the last strophe (verse) are quoted often.  The best way to get the most from both poems (this one and tomorrow's "Dover Bitch") is to read this one first, then tomorrow's, then this one again.  (If you do, you'll qualify as actually caring about poetry and get a "Poetry Geek" pin - leave your email address in the "Comments"....)
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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 Agean, 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 - English

Song - Stephen Spender

(This is the 3rd poem by Spender here - do read the earlier ones, especially "Daybreak", which is one of the most beautiful and gentle and loving poems I know.  Link to his bio is there.)   As befitting one of the leading 20th century English poets, one comes to expect a masterful command of language, like a lion-tamer putting very independent and willful beasts into their places and paces.  The imagery, the word-choices, the airiness of the tone in contrast to the heaviness of the subject is brilliant.  He captures the conflicting emotional states so well: the anger, the sense of betrayal (actual or supposed) the pain in having to imagine how/why it occurred.... Yet.. yet all of it ending with a lonely resignation/bewilderment which is not angry because he loves her still.  And she is a fool for not knowing it.  If you haven't been there yet, I hope it's a place you never visit....
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 Song

Stranger, you who hide my love

         In the curved cheek of a smile

And sleep with her upon a tongue

         Of soft lies that beguile,

                  Your paradisal ecstasy

         Is justified is justified

By hunger of all beasts beneath

         The overhanging cloud

                  Who to snatch quick pleasures run

                  Before their momentary sun

Be eclipsed by death.

Lightly, lightly, from my sleep

         She stole, our vows of dew to break

Upon a day of melting rain

         Another love to take:

                  Her happy happy perfidy

         Was justified was justified

Since compulsive needs of sense

         Clamour to be satisfied

                  And she was never one to miss

                  Plausible happiness

Of a new experience.

I, who stand beneath a bitter

         Blasted tree, with the green life

Of summer joy cut from my side

         By that self-justifying knife,

                  In my exiled misery

         Were justified were justified

If upon two lives I preyed

         Or punished with my suicide,

                  Or murdered pity in my heart

                  Or two other lives did part

To make the world pay what I paid.

Oh, but supposing that I climb

         Alone to a high room of clouds

Up a ladder of the time

And lie upon a bed alone

         And tear a feather from a wing

And listen to the world below

And write round my high paper walls

         Anything and everything

Which I know and do not know!

                                                                     Stephen Spender - English

To........ - Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852) - Irish-born and popularizer of Irish melodies, he lived in London most of his adult life.  (He wrote the lyrics for "The Last Rose of Summer".)  As a poet, composer, and satirist, he was a man of many talents and widely-known for being an ardent  Irish nationalist, though later accused of not doing enough and being false to the cause.  In his personal life, five of his children died before him.  He was also severely criticized for burning Byron's autobiography at the behest of Byron's sister and others, who feared its candor.  The language in this one is striking for sounding like it could have been written last week.
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To……

When I loved you, I can’t but allow
  I had many an exquisite minute;
But the scorn that I feel for you now
  Hath even more luxury in it!

Thus, whether we’re on or we’re off,
  Some witchery seems to await you;
To love you is pleasant enough,
  But oh! ‘tis delicious to hate you!

                                                                                       Thomas Moore- Irish

Chop-Cherry - Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick (1591-1674) -  Poet, Vicar, and admirer of Ben Jonson, he wrote over 1200 short poems along with his reputation-making lyrical poems (Hesperides).   "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.." is the first line of possibly his best known short one.  This one always brings a chuckle, both for its truth and its wit across almost four centuries.  (It's just slightly bawdy.)
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Chop-Cherry

Thou gav’st me leave to kiss,
   Thou gav’st me leave to woo;
Thou mad’st me think, by this
   And that, thou lov’st me too.

But I shall ne’er forget
   How, for to make the merry
Thou mad’st me chop, but yet
   Another snapp’d the cherry.

                                                                   Robert Herrick - English

Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife - Sir Henry Wotton

 Sir Henry Wotton  (1568 - 1639) was an English writer and diplomat.  His life had many twists and turns, and though well-educated, it was not until his later years that he was free of financial worry.  (At one point, he declined the ambassadorship to either France or Spain because the personal cost would have impoverished him.  He chose instead to be Ambassador to Venice.)  There is no requirement that a poem be long in order to say express something meaningful.  This one - and a couple of others that will be here - are pefect examples.  Spousal love and loyalty are often given short shrift in love poetry - not much romance in a relationship that's "settled" - yet, perhaps even more so in this age of so many divorces,  they have their place and should be better appreciated....   As a bonus ("But wait!  There's more!" ), I am also including one of his best known poems, "The Character of A Happy Life".  Though the language sounds stilted to our modern ears, the observations are ageless (and accurate): we could do worse than heed them.
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Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife

He first deceased: she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.

                                                                                  Sir Henry Wotton - English

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The Character of a Happy Life

How happy is he born or taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his highest skill;

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepar'd for death
Untied unto the world with care
Of princes' grace or vulgar breath;

Who envies none whom chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
The deepest wounds are given by praise,
By rule of state, but not of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruins make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his grace than goods to send,
And entertains the harmless day
With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is free from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
                                                                                   Sir Henry Wotton - English

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part - Michael Drayton

 Drayton (1563 - 1631) was a contemporary of Shakespeare, Donne, Ben Jonson and, by accounts, acquainted with at least two of them, as well as other literary figures in the London of that era.  He never married, wrote poetry that, while lauded by critics, is also conceded as being dense and less-than popular with the general public.  He is supposed to have loved his patron's daughter, to whom he dedicated some work.  This sonnet, written in 1619, stands out as being both accessible and "modern" to our ears.  It also hits the perfect note in describing that ambivalence and uncertainty lovers feel about something being perhaps possibly maybe over.....or not.
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Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done: you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly, I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And, when we meet at any time again,
Be it not see in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life, thou might’st him yet recover.

                                                                                             Michael Drayton - English

New Year's Eve - D.H. Lawrence

So many of the poems thus far have had sleep-time, dreams, and dawn for settings that I felt it was time to choose one set to the evening hours before  sleep, when so much loving takes place.  And what better than one by D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930).... whose name is already synonymous with passion?  Lawrence is one of those slightly-larger-than-life characters, a fiercely independent thinker/writer (he declined joining the circle around Ezra Pound!), who is best known for one novel, though he wrote over a dozen in addition to collections of poetry and essays.  He lived away from England for many years after WW I because of public antipathy for his wife, who was German and rumored to have been for her homeland during the war.  Among the places he resided during this self-imposed exile was Santa Fe, NM, where literary groupies vied for his attentions.... Lawrence died in France at age 44.    I think of this poem as something that Mellors (Lady Chatterley's lover) could have written and tucked away: he was educated and well-read enough to do it.  In tone and content, it fits the passion (re)awakened by Connie...
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New Year's Eve

There are only two things now,
The great black night scooped out
And this fireglow.

This fireglow, the core,
And we the two ripe pips
That are held in store.

Listen, the darkness rings
As it circulates round our fire.
Take off your things.

Your shoulder, your bruised throat!
Your breasts, your nakedness!
This fiery coat!

As the darkness flickers and dips,
As the firelight falls and leaps
From your feet to your lips!

                                                                             D.H. Lawrence - English

September - Ted Hughes

Tragically, Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998), one of England's best poets of the last century, is known to many mostly as the husband of Sylvia Plath, the American poet who committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30.  The side-long glances and unspoken questions that surely follow loved ones of all suicides were amplified in his case by the admirers of Plath who blamed him for her death the year following his leaving her for the woman who would become his second wife.  (The fact that she too died by her own hand - after killing their daughter - probably didn't help.  His third marriage, however, lasted almost thirty years, until his own death.)  Reams have been written - mostly critical, as Hughes became a symbol of "male oppression" - about Hughes and Plath.  My two cents?  NO ONE on the outside knows all that goes on within a marriage relationship OR the mind of a suicide, so assigning blame - barring direct, incontrovertible evidence - should be avoided by anyone with compassion.  Sadly, these events in his personal life have often overshadowed his literary legacy.  Though a bit difficult, his poetry is very worth reading for its use of myths and animal imagery.  His children's books include "The Iron Man", which was later made into an animated film, "The Iron Giant" (1999), that bears seeing - I liked it.  This  poem is a bit of a departure from the poetic themes for which he is known.  It also comes from an earlier period in his career. (I chose this photo from many because it makes him look a bit like Hugh Hefner here.)
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September

We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold:
No clock counts this.
When kisses are repeated and the arms hold
There is no telling where time is.

It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still:
Behind the eye a star,
Under the silk of the wrist a sea, tell
Time is nowhere.

We stand; leaves have not timed the summer.
No clock now needs
Tell we have only what we remember:
Minutes uproaring with our heads

Like and unfortunate King’s and Queen’s
When the senseless mob rules;
And quietly the trees casting their crowns
Into the pools.
                                                                                            Ted Hughes - English

Daybreak - S. Spender

My introduction to Spender occurred in my early 20s through this poem.  He wrote it in his mid-30s.  Spender is as well-regarded for his autobiographical works as his poetry.  I find him more accessible - and less academic - than W.H. Auden (THE English poet of the 20th century), who was a contemporary at Oxford in the 1930s.  Spender, to me, has more warmth, more "dream", lyricism, and sensitivity when the subject is the heart.  

This poem is the loveliest expression of that awakening which, once experienced, is never forgotten, and which, once lost, is ever sought after again.
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Daybreak

At dawn she lay with her profile at that angle

Which, when she sleeps, seems the carved face of an angel.
Her hair a harp, the hand of a breeze follows
And plays, against the white cloud of the pillows.
Then, in a flush of rose, she woke, and her eyes that opened
Swam in blue through her rose flesh that dawned.
From her dew of lips, the drop of one word
Fell like the first of fountains: murmured
‘Darling,’ upon my ears the song of the first bird.
‘My dream becomes my dream,’ she said, ‘come true.
I waken from you to my dream of you.’
Oh, my own wakened dream then dared assume
The audacity of her sleep.  Our dreams
Poured into each other’s arms, like streams.
                                                                                      
Stephen Spender - English

The First Day - C. Rossetti

 

Rossetti came from one of those families (like the Kennedys) where you could look like an under-achiever because you were "only" a Senator.  

Her brother was Dante Gabriel Rossetti (painter, poet) and her father Gabrieli Rossetti (poet).  Her poetry, reflective of her time (mid 1800's England), isn't usually my taste, but I've always liked this one, perhaps because it isn't as over-written as (I feel) many of her other ones.  (There are photos of her in later life, but they are not flattering in the least: she was not photogenic.... even this illustration is very kind to her looks.)
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The First Day

I wish I could remember the first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me;
If bright or dim the season it might be;
Summer or winter for aught I can say.
So, unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom, yet, for many a May.

If only I could recollect it! Such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow.
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much!
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand! - Did one but know!

                                                                                          

Christina Rossetti - English

Sonnet 23 - J. Berryman

John Berryman  (1914- 1972)....  His poetry is brilliant wild and he himself a big - and tragic figure in American poetry: another of the "founders" of the Confessional style that committed suicide.  I was in college when that happened, vaguely remember reading about it, but didn't know his poetry well-enough then to be affected.  This one is one of my all-time favorites, a declaration of love that IS "..fresh as  a bubble breaks..".  Goes well with a big Burgundy, an aged Gouda perhaps, and someone who expected the usual.....  Some of Berryman's poems are dazzling but require effort, as your brain will have to make new synapses for his imagery.  (Don't start with the "Dream Songs"!)  You must read this one aloud and with passion!
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Sonnet 23


They may suppose, because I would not cloy your ear - 
If ever these songs by other ears are heard - 
With ‘love’ and ‘love', I loved you not, but blurred 
Lust with strange images, warm, not quite sincere,

To switch a bedroom black.  O mutineer 
With me against these empty captains!  Gird
Your scorn against above all this word
Pompous and vague on the stump of his career.

Also I fox ‘heart’, striking a modern breast
Hollow as a drum, and ‘beauty’ I taboo;
I want a verse fresh as a bubble breaks,
As little false... Blood of my sweet unrest
Runs all the same - I am in love with you -
Trapped in my rib-cage something throes and aches!
                                                                                              

John Berryman - American

Songs for Hedli Anderson (4 Seasons and A Funeral)- W.H.Auden

If this rings familiar as you read it aloud, it's because it was used with great effectiveness in the movie "Four Weddings And A Funeral", starring Hugh Grant.  The film is worth watching just for its recitation by one of the characters.  (It's also the only Hugh Grant movie I really like.)  The full poem is actually two poems, of which this is the first and more eloquent.  W.H. Auden (1907-1973) is considered the giant of English poets of the 20th Century.  He was a master of a variety of styles of poetry and all-around literary genius.  Besides poetry, he wrote essays, plays, criticism, opera libretto, etc.  I saw him on the Dick Cavett Show in '71 or '72 and remember dropping my jaw when another guest, Chad Everett, a VERY minor TV actor, defined chutzpah by RECITING ONE OF HIS OWN POEMS (I think about a horse) while sharing the stage with THE greatest English poet alive....   
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I
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Put away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
                                                                                                

W.H. Auden  -  English