The Rattle Bag: The D & E Poems

[giselle]

Here lies a sorry Catholic
Was a scoundrel in his politic
He thought to kill our queen
We got to hear him scream

This is a great little jingle, I can hear it sung with a bit of rhythm ... makes me think of a kids schoolyard rhyme like Ring around the Rosie (kids can have some of the most brutal rhymes) ... or maybe a pub song. Presents a horrific event in the best possible light, sort of.

Of the Epitaphs my favourite line is:

My name is Ebenezer Brown.
I carted all the trash of town
For sixty years. On the last day
I trust my Lord will cart me away.

Just sounds like a funny quip to me.

[realiz]

Eternity

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

William Blake


Nice.

[giselle]

Blake - nice and (I think) quite true. interesting structure - the way he puts 'winged life' in the line before 'it flies', makes one think question 'what winged life' and then he spells it out, so there is an implies question and then an answer. It would be interesting to know if this is a stand alone poem or an excerpt, I suspect the latter.

On the earlier poem Epigrams (Cunningham), epigrams are intended to be short, clever poems or even 'quips' and so are not necessarily death related like epitaphs. Looking back at Cunningham and noticing the pluralized 'epigrams' I realized that these are multiple 'epigrams' in one 'poem' and are likely unrelated. I think the death theme in the first and third 'verse' is purely coincidental. There may be a bit of conceit on the part of the poet because writing a good epigram is considered notable so, in a way, the poet is congratulating himself by entitling the poem 'epigrams'. I guess one could write a bad epigram so its not necessarily justifiable self-congratulations.

[Penelope]

I agree with your assessment of the Blake poem. I have heard the same sentiment demonstrated by suggesting that if one clutches a handful of fine sand, it trickles away through the fingers, but if you hold it loosely in an open, cupped palm one hardly loses a grain and that one should treat happiness like that.

I, personally, don't think happiness is the same thing as joy. In that a person or a situation can give you happiness, but true joy comes from within and is not necessarily anything to do with outside forces.

We've been left in charge of our 10 week old grandson whilst his Mum and Dad are staying overnight in Glasgow. Our ten year old grandson is also sleeping over and my youngest son, 'Uncle Danny' is sleeping over for the night too, so it's sleepover city here.

Isaac, was in the bath and so I bathed the baby in the washbasin tonight! What Joy!!

We've been away for the weekend staying with a friend in Melbourne. Not the one in Australia, the original one in Derbyshire. It was the arts festival weekend and very enjoyable. It is a very historic village and has some very interesting 'vernacular' architecture. I am just showing off because I've just learned what the term 'vernacular architecture' means. Or is it vernacular cottages?

[realiz]

This poem made me think of the discussion on confidence and faith. I don't think he sounds very confident.

EVEN SUCH IS TIME.

Even such is time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust ;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days ;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust
My God shall raise me up, I trust !


SIR WALTER RALEIGH, written 1618.

[realiz]

The Explosion

On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
In the sun the slagheap slept.

Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke,
Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a nest of lark's eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins
Fathers, brothers, nicknames, laughter,
Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; sun,
Scarfed as in a heat-haze, dimmed.

The dead go on before us, they
Are sitting in God's house in comfort
We shall see them face to face--

Plain as lettering in the chapels
It was said, and for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion

Larger than in life they managed--
Gold as on a coin, or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them,

One showing the eggs unbroken.

Philip Larkin


Interesting how he moves from the pleasant scene of the miners at lunch, to the moment before the explosion, and then to redemption. The horror and heartbreak and loss of life are left out, the part to forget.

I like the last line.

[Penelope]

I think the mundane sunny scenes show how fragile our lives are.

It would be comforting to think that the wives got an image of the men. My step-sister lost her husband in a colliery disaster and it took many years for her to come to terms with it, and she was never the same person. But that sudden bereavement can happen to any of us as this poem demonstrates.

I like Philip Larkins' poetry though, because it is always accessible. I do think that this poem is relevant, whereas the Walter Raleigh 'Even Such' seemed a bit 'navel gazing' to me.....Perhaps it's just the mood I'm in. I have had a spell of busy and I am knackered.

[giselle]

I like Phillip Larkin poetry. This poem has strong 'male' imagery in the earlier verses and the way he deals with the explosion in the background only, almost by omission is great ... what's unsaid being perhaps more important than what is said.

[realiz]

I do not usually like war poetry all that much, but this one is really good. Here, it turns out that nature is more deadly than the enemy.

Exposure
by Wilfred Owen


Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us...
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent...
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient...
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.


Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.
What are we doing here?


The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow...
We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray,
But nothing happens.


Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
But nothing happens.


Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces -
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
Is it that we are dying?


Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed -
We turn back to our dying.


Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid;
Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
For love of God seems dying.


To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.
The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,
Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,
But nothing happens.

[giselle]

Waiting in the cold and wet in the trenches of the first world war, frozen to death literally in some cases, just waiting for something to happen and knowing one might succumb to the cold before the enemy gets you, just hours of waiting days and nights and nothing happens. The psychological effect of this must have been incredible. And Wilfred Owen didn't survive the war he is writing about, killed by the enemy a week before the Armistice, not by the cold. I've always thought that it would be strange to be the last person killed in a war.

This is the end of the E's .. there have been lots of good poems ... shall we continue with F&G? If so, I'll volunteer to post the poems although there will be a short hiatus because I'm away for a week.