To cease upon the midnight with no pain

[Ted Max]

To avoid ruining the Epitaph thread, where Moos has started things off, I feel it's time to break out the nightshade, and snuggle Lethewards in a cosy blanket of melancholia. Who do you go to when nothing but a bit of metaphorical knee-hugging will do?

Cricket playing, radical consumptive John Keats is often good out of the blocks. Here he is enjoying the uplifting sound of a nightingale in full song.

O for a beaker full of the warm south,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stain?d mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim -

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

------------------------------------------------

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mus?d rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain --

To thy high requiem become a sod.

[????]

Just because it's fookin poetry week...

did Keats really play cricket?

[????]

Next it will be John Clare and darts

[Ted Max]

It's always poetry week, ????.

Keats wrote in a letter (to his brother, I think) that he'd got a black eye playing cricket on the Heath. This is good going considering they'd have been bowling underarm.

[Ted Max]

Here's Arnold who turns a calm evening night listening to the waves on Dover Beach into this happy ditty. Note another use of "darkling". You've got to hand it to these lads.

---------

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.

[Sue]

Hey thanks, I'd forgotten how much I love poetry

:-$

[Moos]

Thanks Ted, that was lovely. Here's some Yeats for you all, best accompanied by a splash of Scotch.

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty Swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;

I saw, before I had well finished,

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?

[????]

Tennyson...on death

All Things will Die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing

Under my eye;

Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing

Over the sky.

One after another the white clouds are fleeting;

Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating

Full merrily;

Yet all things must die.

The stream will cease to flow;

The wind will cease to blow;

The clouds will cease to fleet;

The heart will cease to beat;

For all things must die.

All things must die.

Spring will come never more.

O, vanity!

Death waits at the door.

See! our friends are all forsaking

The wine and the merrymaking.

We are call�d�we must go.

Laid low, very low,

In the dark we must lie.

The merry glees are still;

The voice of the bird

Shall no more be heard,

Nor the wind on the hill.

O, misery!

Hark! death is calling

While I speak to ye,

The jaw is falling,

The red cheek paling,

The strong limbs failing;

Ice with the warm blood mixing;

The eyeballs fixing.

Nine times goes the passing bell:

Ye merry souls, farewell.

The old earth

Had a birth,

As all men know,

Long ago.

And the old earth must die.

So let the warm winds range,

And the blue wave beat the shore;

For even and morn

Ye will never see

Thro� eternity.

All things were born.

Ye will come never more,

For all things must die.

[Moos]

My mother says she cries every time she sees Romeo and Juliet, and prays that this time, this time the priest will get through, the message will work, the lovers will be reunited.

And how could you not cry knowing the end and listening to the young girl in love, unable to bear waiting for her man?

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Act 3, Scene 2

SCENE II. Capulet's orchard.

Enter JULIET

JULIET

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner

As Phaethon would whip you to the west,

And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo

Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites

By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,

It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,

Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,

And learn me how to lose a winning match,

Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:

Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,

With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,

Think true love acted simple modesty.

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night

Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

O, I have bought the mansion of a love,

But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,

Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day

As is the night before some festival

To an impatient child that hath new robes

And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,

And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks

But Romeo's name speaks heavenly

[Mikecg]

For me music and poetry are inseparable and I have chosen this piece to coincide with Quids Tennyson on death, This has to be one of the saddest pieces of music ever composed and it is said that Tchaikovsky committed suicide soon after because of his homosexuality, very tragic.

 

[Ted Max]

Nice choices all.

Moos, do you remember the Jameson's campaign which contrasted Yeats with Burns, using the tagline "The smoother the Irish"? Glad to see you sticking to the Scotch, though.

I feel the self-indulgent thrill once more. But I'm off for a kip. Or as Prospero might say:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

[Moos]

*smiles*

[woofmarkthedog]

More homo for Cg............no really some of my best are.............

[????]

Romeo & Juliet has some softening in its tragedy in the purity and innocence of their love

?Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all??

Now that's awful, heartfelt, self inflicted pain at its unconsolable depth from Lear...nothing but bleakness left there

Edited cos i can't spell tragedy

[Moos]

Of course he lost a child of his own. I've read that some people think this speech (from King John) was written soon after:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.

Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

Oh dear, this is taking melancholy too far... I think I shall hie me to my quiet bed.

[Ted Max]

Good shout ???? and Moos. This is the thread for sweet, sweet sorrow.

Eviscerating emotional rawness is that way ----->>>>>>>>

[brum]

Sorrow, captured forever in these few words by our Bill...

...here, here will I remain

With worms that are thy chambermaids: O!

here will I set up my everlasting rest,

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain to engrossing death!

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!

[Ted Max]

Still here - I seem not to have ceased upon the midnight. In honour of Carol Ann Duffy's recent appointment. Includes a line you could die happy to have written.

"Grade 1 piano scales console the lodger looking out across a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls a child's name as though they named their loss."

That's the stuff we're after.

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

John Otway:

Look out baby

Look out Pet

Here's the kid

Who's gonna get the Blues

When you go away

I'm on fire

Cause I'm in love

With a girl who's not the girl she was

When I was out with her

I saw you in the garden minute

You looked so debonair

Beware of the flowers

Because I'm sure they're gonna get you

Yeah!

[Ted Max]

Anyone up for some more?

Long Distance II, by Tony Harrison.

Though my mother was already two years dead

Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,

put hot water bottles her side of the bed

and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.

He'd put you off an hour to give him time

to clear away her things and look alone

as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief

though sure that very soon he'd hear her key

scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.

He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.

You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,

in my new black leather phone book there's your name

and the disconnected number I still call.

[david_carnell]

Gravy

Raymond Carver

No other word will do. For that's what it was.

Gravy.

Gravy, these past ten years.

Alive, sober, working, loving, and

being loved by a good woman. Eleven years

ago he was told he had six months to live

at the rate he was going. And he was going

nowhere but down. So he changed his ways

somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?

After that it was all gravy, every minute

of it, up to and including when he was told about,

well, some things that were breaking down and

building up inside his head. "Don't weep for me,"

he said to his friends. "I'm a lucky man.

I've had ten years longer than I or anyone

expected. Pure Gravy. And don't forget it."

[Brendan]

Oh for fucks sake Ted now I?m depressed. Exquisitely so but depressed nonetheless.

[Ted Max]

Oh dear, Brendan. Yet David offers a smudge of light on this dark palette. (Thanks, David)

Late in his life, and after the death of his first wife (whom he had long since excluded when she was alive - she slept alone in the attic and was not allowed in his study), Thomas Hardy turned in a series of poems about her, and the lost life they never had. This one's quite long but it builds nicely. We've all watched the morning harden upon the wall, I guess. But while the wife carked it upstairs? Unmoved, unknowing...

The Going

Why did you give no hint that night

That quickly after the morrow's dawn,

And calmly, as if indifferent quite,

You would close your term here, up and be gone

Where I could not follow

With wing of swallow

To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!

Never to bid good-bye

Or lip me the softest call,

Or utter a wish for a word, while I

Saw morning harden upon the wall,

Unmoved, unknowing

That your great going

Had place that moment, and altered all.

Why do you make me leave the house

And think for a breath it is you I see

At the end of the alley of bending boughs

Where so often at dusk you used to be;

Till in darkening dankness

The yawning blankness

Of the perspective sickens me!

You were she who abode

By those red-veined rocks far West,

You were the swan-necked one who rode

Along the beetling Beeny Crest,

And, reining nigh me,

Would muse and eye me,

While Life unrolled us its very best.

Why, then, latterly did we not speak,

Did we not think of those days long dead,

And ere your vanishing strive to seek

That time's renewal? We might have said,

"In this bright spring weather

We'll visit together

Those places that once we visited."

Well, well! All's past amend,

Unchangeable. It must go.

I seem but a dead man held on end

To sink down soon. . . . O you could not know

That such swift fleeing

No soul foreseeing--

Not even I--would undo me so!

[bigbadwolf]

Good to have you back and all that Ted but could we have a couple rib splitters before you carry on with your poetry posts please.

[PinkyB]

A shrug of a poem, one of the few I remember off by heart (I suppose because it's short, if not that sweet)..

Resume

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren't lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

- Dorothy Parker

Seems a good motto for life, really.