The Top 500 Poems: 400-301

[bleachededen]

Deep? Or so nonsensical no one can follow it so he seems more important than he really is?

Something to consider; I think you know what I think about it.

[DWill]

330. "Peter Quince at the Clavier," by Wallace Stevens.

I

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna;

Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

II

In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned --
A cymbal crashed,
Amid roaring horns.

III

Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.

They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side;

And as they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.

Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then, the simpering Byzantines
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

IV

Beauty is momentary in the mind --
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.

Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

[oblivion]

I love it, especially part III....but I enjoy Stevens. And I find poems and music go hand in hand...if well done. The book we're discussing on the other thread has one by M. Rukeyser called "Dream Drumming" which is executed wonderfully. I find this one to be as well. I need to find out if he had any connection to Zen. This line is exemplary: "Beauty is momentary in the mind "....
beautiful! (Good thing I wrote that comment down about it being beautiful as I'm sure I won't remember it in about 30 seconds or so...).

[DWill]

I love it, especially part III....but I enjoy Stevens. And I find poems and music go hand in hand...if well done. The book we're discussing on the other thread has one by M. Rukeyser called "Dream Drumming" which is executed wonderfully. I find this one to be as well. I need to find out if he had any connection to Zen. This line is exemplary: "Beauty is momentary in the mind "....
beautiful! (Good thing I wrote that comment down about it being beautiful as I'm sure I won't remember it in about 30 seconds or so...).

This is an early poem of his and, though I don't know his poems well, seems a lot more sensuous and less oblique than the others that are anthologized. But it's still fairly oblique, for all that. What is Peter Quince, a clownish figure from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," doing in the title?

[GaryG48]

Stevens is sneaky hard. Because he has an excellent ear many of his poems seem light and straight forward. As DWill noted, they are not so but, like a lot of modernist poets, you have to notice the "strangeness" coming from allusions or metaphors.

In contrast, there is nothing sneaky about Elliot, his stuff is just plain hard.

[DWill]

329. "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight," by Vachel Lindsay.

(In Springfield, Illinois)

IT is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards 5
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl 10
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us:—as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long, 15
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks of men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why;
Too many homesteads in black terror weep. 20

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn 25
Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free:
A league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that things must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men 30
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

[oblivion]

Sigh. And yet another poem evoking the burden and horror of war. but with a "Lincoln bonus":

Poetryanimations presents this rendering:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxZw-FBtOfE

And here, a comment I don't exactly agree with:

"...mentioned the Springfield home of poet Vachel Lindsay. The Lindsay poem with which I'm most familiar, Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, was written during the First World War, some fifty years after Lincoln's death.

The poem has always been a favorite of mine and it comes to life when you visit Springfield.

It portrays Lincoln walking the familiar haunts of his adopted hometown, roused from the sleep of death on the Springfield hill where he is buried, awakened by war, injustice, and the promise of peace.

The poem does more than evoke the image of the Springfield Lincoln, who when not riding the Eighth Judicial Circuit as a trial lawyer, walked from his offices to his home, stopping often to talk with people and play with children.

It also suggests images of an earlier Lincoln, the young man in New Salem, bent on improving himself and learning the law, voraciously reading as he walked on his errands, perhaps delivering the mail, turning a friendly face and giving a greeting to those he passed.

Finally and most directly, it evokes memories of the Presidential Lincoln, shawl wrapped over his shoulders, making his midnight walks to the War Department telegraph office for news from Civil War battlefields, ever burdened by the unfolding national tragedy and his role in it.

Here, in a picture of the compassionate and now deceased Lincoln, is Lindsay's beautiful poem...." Mark Daniels

This was taken from a blog: http://markdaniels.blogspot.com/2005/08 ... night.html

I'm assuming you have to be a fan or at least admirer of Lincoln to say this as I do not find the poem aesthetically pleasing, much less beautiful, as Daniels does. I feel, though, that emotions would be running rampant while reading the poem when it was written, not only because of WWI but because Lincoln was still very much alive in the memories of many of the readers. I do not think that this poem has passed the test of time.

[oblivion]

But it's still fairly oblique, for all that. What is Peter Quince, a clownish figure from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," doing in the title?

The Poetry Foundation (great magazine, btw) said, " Because of the extreme technical and thematic complexity of his work, Stevens was sometimes considered a willfully difficult poet. " How true, how true.

Perhaps, considering Quince is bumbling, this is Stevens' idea of a disclaimer within a poem......"if it doesn't work, don't blame me--I told you the pianist can't be worth anything". Who knows? Perhaps he means that art is there for everyone, not just the virtuoso.

[DWill]

While tying to track down the Quince connection, I read that Stevens had a diffident and apologetic attitude toward his early poems. Maybe he felt they weren't up to what he envisioned for himself. Your guess about Quince serving as a disclaimer is in line with that thought, and is pretty smart, by the way. (Sorry, I know you'd rather not hear 'pretty' used like this, but it's very ingrained in me.)

[oblivion]

While tying to track down the Quince connection, I read that Stevens had a diffident and apologetic attitude toward his early poems. Maybe he felt they weren't up to what he envisioned for himself. Your guess about Quince serving as a disclaimer is in line with that thought, and is pretty smart, by the way. (Sorry, I know you'd rather not hear 'pretty' used like this, but it's very ingrained in me.)

Hey, with a compliment like that, you're welcome to use "pretty" or whatever else happens to stick in your mind ( ).
But truthfully, I have absolutely no idea what he really does mean. That was the only thing that seemed logical.