Survey of English Poetry ENGL 321

Course Outline
How to read a poem
Literary terms for the study of poetry

Selected poems for study and class discussion

:Course outline
Renaissance Poetry (16th/ 17th Century)
?Shakespeare Sonnet 106 -
-George Herbert Easter Wings

Neo classical Poetry (17th Century)

-Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Romantic Poetry (18th/ 19th Century)

-William Blake The Chimney Sweeper
-William Wordsworth I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Percy Bysshe Shelley Ode to the West Wind -

Victorian Poetry (Late 19th Century)

-Matthew Arnold Dover Beach
Charlotte Bronte On the Death of Anne Bronte -

Modernist Poetry
-T.S.Eliot The Waste Land
W.B.Yeats The Second Coming -
Imagist Poetry
-Ezra Pound In a Station of a Metro
New Apocalypse
Dylan Thomas Don't Go Gentle into that Good Night -

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How to Read a Poem
Read a poem with a pencil in your hand.

Mark it up; write in the margins; react to it; get involved with it. Circle important, or
striking, or repeated words. Draw lines to connect related ideas. Mark difficult or
confusing words, lines, and passages.

Read through the poem several times, both silently and aloud, listening carefully to
the sound and rhythm of the words.

1 Examine the basic subject of the poem

 Consider the title of the poem carefully. What does it tell you about the
poem’s subject, tone, and genre? What does it promise? (After having read the
poem, you will want to come back to the title in order to consider further its
relationship with the poem.)
 What is your initial impression of the poem’s subject? Try writing out an
answer to the question, “What is this poem about?”–and then return to this
question throughout your analysis. Push yourself to be precise; aim for more
than just a vague impression of the poem. What is the author’s attitude toward
his or her subject?
 What is the poem’s basic situation? What is going on in it? Who is talking?
To whom? Under what circumstances? Where? About what? Why? Is a story
being told? Is something–tangible or intangible–being described? What
specifically can you point to in the poem to support your answers?.
 Is the poem built on a comparison or analogy? If so, how is the comparison
appropriate? How are the two things alike? How different?
 What is the author’s attitude toward his subject? Serious? Reverent? Ironic?
Satiric? Ambivalent? Hostile? Humorous? Detached? Witty?
 Does the poem appeal to a reader’s intellect? Emotions? Reason?

2 Consider the context of the poem

 Are there any allusions to other literary or historical figures or events? How
do these add to the poem? How are they appropriate?
 What do you know about this poet? About the age in which he or she wrote
this poem? About other works by the same author?

3 Study the form of the poem

 Consider the sound and rhythm of the poem. Is there a metrical pattern? If so,
how regular is it? Does the poet use rhyme? What do the meter and rhyme
emphasize? Is there any alliteration? Assonance? Onomatopoeia? How do
these relate to the poem’s meaning? What effect do they create in the poem?
 Are there divisions within the poem? Marked by stanzas? By rhyme? By
shifts in subject? By shifts in perspective? How do these parts relate to each
other? How are they appropriate for this poem?

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  How are the ideas in the poem ordered? Is there a progression of some sort?
From simple to complex? From outer to inner? From past to present? From
one place to another? Is there a climax of any sort?
 What are the form and genre of this poem? What should you expect from
such a poem? How does the poet use the form?

4 Look at the word choice of the poem

 One way to see the action in a poem is to list all its verbs. What do they tell
you about the poem?
 Are there difficult or confusing words? Even if you are only the slightest bit
unsure about the meaning of a word, look it up in a good dictionary. If you are
reading poetry written before the twentieth century, learn to use the Oxford
English Dictionary, which can tell you how a word’s definition and usage
have changed over time. Be sure that you determine how a word is being
used–as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb–so that you can find its appropriate
meaning. Be sure also to consider various possible meanings of a word and be
alert to subtle differences between words. A good poet uses language very
carefully; as a good reader you in turn must be equally sensitive to the
implications of word choice.
 What mood is evoked in the poem? How is this accomplished? Consider the
ways in which not only the meanings of words but also their sound and the
poem’s rhythms help to create its mood.
 Is the language in the poem abstract or concrete? How is this appropriate to
the poem’s subject?
 Are there any consistent patterns of words? For example, are there several
references to flowers, or water, or politics, or religion in the poem? Look for
groups of similar words.
 Does the poet use figurative language? Are there metaphors in the poem?
Similes? Is there any personification? Consider the appropriateness of such
comparisons. Try to see why the poet chose a particular metaphor as opposed
to other possible ones. Is there a pattern of any sort to the metaphors? Is there
any metonymy in the poem? Synechdoche? Hyperbole? Oxymoron? Paradox?
A dictionary of literary terms may be helpful here.

5 Last questions to answer:

 Ask, finally, about the poem, What does it do? What does it say? What is its
purpose? What is the message it seeks to transmit?

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 Poetry Terms: Brief Definitions

***
Here you’ll find the most important literary terms for the study of
poetry with examples:

1. Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant

sounds—particularly the sound of a word’s initial consonant
—for aural effect.
2. Anapest : An anapest is a metrical foot of poetry that
consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one
stressed syllable. Anapest is used in meter such as
anapestic tetrameter (four anapests per line of poetry).
3. Anaphora: In poetry, anaphora refers to a repeated word or
phrase at the beginning of successive lines. As it comes at
the beginning of a line, anaphora does not affect a poem’s
pattern of rhyme.
4. Apostrophe: An apostrophe is a poetic phrase addressed to
a subject who is either dead or absent, or to an inanimate
object or abstract idea.
5. Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds for
aural effect. Learn how to employ assonance in your poetic
verse with our complete guide here .
6. Ballad: A ballad (or ballade) is a form of narrative verse that
can be either poetic or musical. It typically follows a pattern
of rhymed quatrains. From John Keats to Samuel Taylor
Coleridge to Bob Dylan, ballads represent a melodious form
of storytelling. 
7. Blank verse: Blank verse is poetry written with a precise
meter—almost always iambic pentameter—that does not
rhyme. William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and
John Milton are among the most famous purveyors of
unrhymed blank verse
8. Caesura: In poetry, a caesura is a break between words
within a metrical foot. A caesura can also simply indicate a
pause occurring in the middle of a line.
9. Couplet: Couplet-based poetry contains pairs of rhyming
lines. 
10. Dactyl: A dactyl is a metrical foot of poetry consisting of one
stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. It is
used in poetic meters such as dactylic hexameter (six
dactyl feet per line).

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11. Elegy: An elegy is a poem that reflects upon death or
loss. Traditionally, it contains themes of mourning, loss,
and reflection. However, it can also explore themes of
redemption and consolation. 
12. Enjambment: Enjambment is the continuation of a poetic
phrase beyond the end of a line , couplet, or stanza. A
lengthy enjambment may continue over a large group of
lines.
13. Epic: An epic poem is a lengthy, narrative work of
poetry. These long poems typically detail extraordinary
feats and adventures of characters from a distant past. The
word “epic” comes from the ancient Greek term “epos,”
which means “story, word, poem.” 
14. Free verse: Free verse poetry lacks a consistent
rhyme scheme, metrical pattern, or musical form. While free
verse poems are not devoid of structure, they allow
enormous leeway for poets, particularly when compared to
more metrically strict forms like blank verse. Much of
contemporary free verse traces its influences back to Walt
Whitman’s Leaves of Grass anthology. 
15. Haiku: A haiku is a three-line poetic form originating in
Japan. The first line has five syllables, the second line has
seven syllables, and the third line again has five syllables.
Haikus frequently explore nature as a topic. 
16. Heroic couplet: A heroic couplet is a pair of rhyming
iambic pentameters, common in the poetry of Geoffrey
Chaucer and Alexander Pope. Note that these rhymes
occur at the end of a line; an internal rhyme cannot produce
a heroic couplet.
17. Hyperbole: Hyperbole is a form of dramatic
exaggeration used in poetry and prose alike.
18. Iambic pentameter: Iambic pentameter is a form of poetic
meter where each line of poetry contains five metrical feet
known as iambs—two syllable groupings where the second
syllable is emphasized. Iambic pentameter is the basis of
free verse poetry and is best known via the works of
William Shakespeare and John Milton.
19. Limerick: A limerick is a five-line poem that consists
of a single stanza, an AABBA rhyme scheme, and whose
subject is a short, pithy tale or description. Most limericks
are comedic, some are downright crude—and nearly all are
trivial in nature. 

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20. Litotes: A figure of speech that makes a statement by
articulating the negative of its contrary is a litotes. For
instance the phrase “you won't be disappointed” can be
used to mean “you will be pleased.”
21. Lyric: Lyric poetry refers to the broad category of
poetry that concerns feelings and emotion. This
distinguishes the lyric poem from two other poetic
categories: epic and dramatic. 
22. Metonymy: Metonymy is a poetic and literary device  where
a name, term, or part of an object is used to represent the
object as a whole. For instance, calling a businessperson a
“suit” or a pundit a “talking head” would be metonymy.
23. Narrative: Similar to an epic, a narrative poem tells a
story. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Midnight Ride of
Paul Revere” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner” exemplify this form.  .
24. Ode: Much like an elegy, an ode is a tribute to its
subject, although the subject need not be dead—or even
sentient, as in John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” 
25. Onomatopoeia: Onomatopoeia describes a word that
emulates the sound it is describing . Examples include
“woof” and “ping pong.”
26. Oxymoron: A phrase containing words that appear to be
logically incompatible , such as “jumbo shrimp” or
“deafening silence” is an oxymoron.
27. Pastoral: A pastoral poem is one that concerns the
natural world, rural life, and landscapes. These poems have
persevered from Ancient Greece (in the poetry of Hesiod)
to Ancient Rome (Virgil) to the present day (Gary Snyder). 
28. Petrarchan sonnet: The Petrarchan sonnet is named
after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch, a lyrical poet of
fourteenth-century Italy. Its 14 lines are divided into two
subgroups: an octave and a sestet. The octave follows a
rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA. The sestet follows one of
two rhyme schemes—either CDE CDE scheme (more
common) or CDC CDC. 
29. Quatrain: Quatrain-based poetry contains four-line
groupings where alternate lines typically rhyme, as
exemplified in the poetry of Emily Dickinson. A four-line
stanza need not always rhyme in quatrain-based poetry.  .
30. Rhymed poem: In contrast to blank verse, rhymed
poems rhyme by definition, although their scheme varies.

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 Some of the common rhyme schemes include ABAB and
ABCB. 
31. Scansion: The rhythm of a line within a work of poetry is
known as its scansion.
32. Shakespearean sonnet: The Shakespearean sonnet is a
variation on the Italian sonnet tradition. The form evolved in
England during the Elizabethan era. These sonnets are
sometimes referred to as Elizabethan sonnets or English
sonnets. They have 14 lines divided into four subgroups:
three quatrains and a couplet. Each line is typically 10
syllables, phrased in iambic pentameter. A Shakespearean
sonnet employs the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF
GG. Learn more about Shakespearean sonnets here .
33. Simile: A simile is a figure of speech that compares one
thing to another  and uses the word “like” or “as” in order to
do so.
34. Sonnet: A sonnet is a 14-line poem, typically (but not
exclusively) concerning the topic of love. Sonnets contain
an internal rhyme scheme; the exact rhyme scheme
depends on the style of sonnet. The word “sonnet” itself
stems from the Italian word “sonetto,” which itself derives
from the Latin “suono,” meaning “a sound.” The commonly
credited originator of the sonnet is Giacomo da Lentini, who
composed poetry in the literary Sicilian dialect in the
thirteenth century.  .
35. Spondee: A spondee is a foot of poetry consisting of
two back-to-back stressed syllables. It is used in meter
such as spondaic heptameter (seven spondees per line of
poetry).
36. Synecdoche: Synecdoche is a poetic and literary device  in
which a part is used to represent a whole, or a whole is
used to represent a part. For instance, the governing body
of the European Union is sometimes referred to as
“Brussels,” when in fact the EU is a governing body that
convenes in the city of Brussels.
37. Tercet: Tercet-based poetry contains three-line
groupings. Sometimes all three lines rhyme with one
another. Not to be confused with trimeter, which refers to
three poetic feet per line.
38. Trochee: A trochee is a foot of poetry consisting of
one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable.
As stressing the first syllable is common among English
words, trochaic poetry is popular in forms like trochaic

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 tetrameter (four trochees per line) or even trochaic dimeter
(two trochees per line).
39. Villanelle: A villanelle is a 19-line poem consisting of
five tercets and a quatrain, with a highly specified internal
rhyme scheme. Originally a variation on a pastoral, the
villanelle has evolved to describe obsessions and other
intense subject matters, as exemplified by Dylan Thomas,
author of villanelles like “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good
Night.

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1. Alliteration: The repetition of identical consonant sounds,

most often the sounds beginning words, in close proximity.
Example: pensive poets, nattering nabobs of negativism.
2. Allusion: Unacknowledged reference and quotations that
authors assume their readers will recognize.
3. Anaphora: Repetition of the same word or phrase at the
beginning of a line throughout a work or the section of a
work.
4. Apostrophe: Speaker in a poem addresses a person not
present or an animal, inanimate object, or concept as though
it is a person. Example: Wordsworth--"Milton! Thou shouldst
be living at this hour / England has need of thee"
5. Assonance: The repetition of identical vowel sounds in
different words in close proximity. Example: deep green sea.
6. Ballad: A narrative poem composed of quatrains (iambic
tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter)  rhyming x-a-x-a.
Ballads may use refrains.  Examples: "Jackaroe," "The Long
Black Veil"
7. Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter. Example:
Shakespeare's plays
8. Caesura: A short but definite pause used for effect within a
line of poetry. Carpe diem poetry: "seize the day." Poetry
concerned with the shortness of life and the need to act in or
enjoy the present. Example: Herrick’s "To the Virgins to
Make Much of Time"
9. Chiasmus (antimetabole): Chiasmus is a "crossing" or
reversal of two elements; antimetabole, a form of chiasmus,
is the reversal of the same words in a grammatical structure.
Example: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask wyat
you can do for your country. Example: You have seen how a

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 man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made
a man.
10. Common meter or hymn measure (Emily Dickinson):
iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter. Other
example: "Amazing Grace" by John
Newton http://www.constitution.org/col/amazing_grace.htm
11. Consonanceis the counterpart of assonance; the
partial or total identity of consonants in words whose main
vowels differ. Example: shadow meadow; pressed, passed;
sipped, supped. Owen uses this "impure rhyme" to convey
the anguish of war and death.
12. Couplet: two successive rhyming lines. Couplets end
the pattern of a Shakespearean sonnet.
13. Diction: Diction is usually used to describe the level of
formality that a speaker uses.
14. Diction (formal or high): Proper, elevated, elaborate,
and often polysyllabic language. This type of language used
to be thought the only type suitable for poetry
15. Neutral or middle diction: Correct language
characterized by directness and simplicity.
16. Diction (informal or low): Relaxed, conversational and
familiar language.
17. Dramatic monologue: A type of poem, derived from
the theater, in which a speaker addresses an internal listener
or the reader.  In some dramatic monologues, especially
those by Robert Browning, the speaker may reveal his
personality in unexpected and unflattering ways.
18. End-stopped line: A line ending in a full pause,
usually indicated with a period or semicolon.
19. Enjambment (or enjambement): A line having no end
punctuation but running over to the next line.
20. Explication: A complete and detailed analysis of a
work of literature, often word-by-word and line-by-line.
21. Foot (prosody): A measured combination of heavy
and light stresses. The numbers of feet are given below.
monometer (1 foot) dimeter (2 feet) trimeter (3 feet)
tetrameter (4 feet) pentameter (5 feet) hexameter (6 feet)
heptameter or septenary (7 feet)
22. Heroic couplet: two successive rhyming lines of
iambic pentameter; the second line is usually end-stopped.
23. Hymn meter or common measure: quatrains of
iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter rhyming a b
a b. 

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24. Hyperbole (overstatement) and litotes
(understatement): Hyperbole is exaggeration for effect;
litotes is understatement for effect, often used for irony.
25. Iambic pentameter: Iamb (iambic): an unstressed
stressed foot.The most natural and common kind of meter in
English; it elevates speech to poetry.
26. Image: Images are references that trigger the mind to
fuse together memories of sight (visual), sounds (auditory),
tastes (gustatory), smells (olfactory), and sensations of touch
(tactile). Imagery refers to images throughout a work or
throughout the works of a writer or group of writers.
27. Internal rhyme: An exact rhyme (rather than rhyming
vowel sounds, as with assonance) within a line of poetry:
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak
and weary."
28. Metaphor: A comparison between two unlike things,
this describes one thing as if it were something else. Does
not use "like" or "as" for the comparison (see simile).
29. Metaphysical conceit: An elaborate and extended
metaphor or simile that links two apparently unrelated fields
or subjects in an unusual and surprising conjunction of ideas.
The term is commonly applied to the metaphorical language
of a number of early seventeenth-century poets, particularly
John Donne. Example: stiff twin compasses//the joining
together of lovers like legs of a compass. See "To His Coy
Mistress"
30. Meter: The number of feet within a line of traditional
verse. Example: iambic pentameter.
31. Octave: The first eight lines of an Italian or Petrarchan
sonnet, unified by rhythm, rhyme, and topic.
32. Onomatopoeia. A blending of consonant and vowel
sounds designed to imitate or suggest the activity being
described. Example: buzz, slurp.
33. Paradox: A rhetorical figure embodying a seeming
contradiction that is nonetheless true.
34. Personification: Attributing human characteristics to
nonhuman things or abstractions.
35. Petrarchan sonnet: A sonnet (14 lines of rhyming
iambic pentameter) that divides into an octave (8) and sestet
(6). There is a "volta," or "turning" of the subject matter
between the octave and sestet.
36. Pyrrhic foot (prosody): two unstressed feet (an
"empty" foot) Quatrain: a four-line stanza or poetic unit. In an

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 English or Shakespearean sonnet, a group of four lines
united by rhyme.
37. Refrain: repeated word or series of words in response
or counterpoint to the main verse, as in a ballad.
38. Rhyme: The repetition of identical concluding syllables
in different words, most often at the ends of lines. Example:
June--moon.
39. Double rhyme or trochaic rhyme: rhyming words of
two syllables in which the first syllable is accented (flower,
shower)
40. Triple rhyme or dactylic rhyme: Rhyming words of
three or more syllables in which any syllable but the last is
accented. Example: Macavity/gravity/depravity
41. Eye rhyme: Words that seem to rhyme because they
are spelled identically but pronounced differently. Example:
bear/fear, dough/cough/through/bough
42. Slant rhyme: A near rhyme in which the concluding
consonant sounds are identical but not the vowels. Example:
sun/noon, should/food, slim/ham.
43. Rhyme scheme: The pattern of rhyme, usually
indicated by assigning a letter of the alphabet to each rhyme
at the end of a line of poetry.
44. Rhyme royal: Stanza form used by Chaucer, usually
in iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme ababbcc.
Example: Wordsworth's "Resolution and Independence"
45. Scan (scansion): the process of marking beats in a poem to
establish the prevailing metrical pattern. Prosody, the
pronunciation of a song or poem, is necessary for scansion.
(Go to the "Introduction to Prosody" page or try the scansion
quiz.). Stressed syllables are in caps.
46. Anapest: unstressed unstressed stressed. Also
called "galloping meter."
a. Example: 'Twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas, and
ALL through the HOUSE/ Not a CREAture was
STIRring, not EVen a MOUSE."
47. Dactyl (dactylic) stressed unstressed
unstressed. This pattern is more common (as dactylic
hexameter) in Latin poetry than in English poetry.
(Emphasized syllables are in caps. Some of the three-
syllable words below are natural dactyls: firmaments,
practical, tactical
a. Example: GRAND go the YEARS in the CREScent
aBOVE them/WORLDS scoop their ARCS/ and

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 FIRMaments ROW (Emily Dickinson, "Safe in their
Alabaster Chambers")
b. Example: No one has more resilience / Or matches my
PRAC-ti-cal TAC-ti-cal brilliance (Lin-Manuel
Miranda, Hamilton)
48. Spondee: stressed stressed. A two-syllable foot with
two stressed accents. The opposite of a pyrrhic foot, this foot
is used for effect.
49. Trochee (trochaic): stressed unstressed. Example:
"Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright"
50. Sestet: A six-line stanza or unit of poetry.
51. Shakespearean sonnet: A fourteen-line poem written
in iambic pentameter, composed of three quatrains and a
couplet rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.
52. Simile. A direct comparison between two dissimilar
things; uses "like" or "as" to state the terms of the
comparison.
53. Sonnet: A closed form consisting of fourteen lines of
rhyming iambic pentameter.
54. Shakespearean or English sonnet: 3 quatrains and a
couplet, often with three arguments or images in the
quatrains being resolved in the couplet. Rhyme scheme:
abab cdcd efef gg
55. Petrarchan or Italian sonnet: 8 lines (the "octave") and
6 lines (the "sestet") of rhyming iambic pentameter, with a
turning or "volta" at about the 8th line. Rhyme scheme: abba
abba cdcdcd (or cde cde)
56. Stanza: A group of poetic lines corresponding to
paragraphs in prose; the meters and rhymes are usually
repeating or systematic.
57. Synaesthesia: A rhetorical figure that describes one
sensory impression in terms of a different sense, or one
perception in terms of a totally different or even opposite
feeling.  Example: "darkness visible" "green thought"
58. Syntax: Word order and sentence structure.

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 Periods of English Poetry and selected Poems
***
The Renaissance (16 / 17 th th
Century)

William Shakespeare
:Sonnet 106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

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 George Herbert
Easter Wings

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

      Though foolishly he lost the same,
            Decaying more and more,
                  Till he became
                        Most poore:
                        With thee
                  O let me rise
            As larks, harmoniously,
      And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne

      And still with sicknesses and shame.
            Thou didst so punish sinne,
                  That I became
                        Most thinne.
                        With thee
                  Let me combine,
            And feel thy victorie:
         For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

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 Alexander Pope
An Essay on Man
I.
Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples ev'ry star,
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,

And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?

II.
Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!

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Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?
Of systems possible, if 'tis confest
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain
There must be somewhere, such a rank as man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,

May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains

His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains:
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

16
Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;
Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place,
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest today is as completely so,
As who began a thousand years ago.

III.
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore!
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:

17
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV.
Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice, be the God of God.
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,

18
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause.

V.
Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine:
For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew,
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."

But errs not Nature from this gracious end,

From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No, ('tis replied) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:
And what created perfect?"—Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.

19
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?
Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms,
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,

Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The gen'ral order, since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

VI.
What would this man? Now upward will he soar,
And little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;

20
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heav'n unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?

The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII.
Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:

21
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood:
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew:
How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine:
'Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier;
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied;
What thin partitions sense from thought divide:
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one?

VIII.
See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach! from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing!—On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:

22
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll

Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature tremble to the throne of God.
All this dread order break—for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!—Oh madness, pride, impiety!

IX.
What if the foot ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing Mind of All ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,

23
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

X.
Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit.—In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

24
 Romantic Poetry (18th/ 19th Century)

William Blake
The Chimney Sweeper

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet, & that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark

And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

William Wordsworth
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

25
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ode to the West Wind
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

26
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread

On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

27
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

28
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

29
 Victorian Poetry (Late 19th Century)
Matthew Arnold
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,

30
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Modernist Poetry
T.S.Eliot

The Waste Land

                                           FOR EZRA POUND

                                IL MIGLIOR FABBRO

              I. The Burial of the Dead

  April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

31
  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
                      Frisch weht der Wind
                      Der Heimat zu
                      Mein Irisch Kind,
                      Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.

  Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,

Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)

32
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

  Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

              II. A Game of Chess

33
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.

34
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

  “My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
  “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

  I think we are in rats’ alley

Where the dead men lost their bones.

  “What is that noise?”

                          The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
                           Nothing again nothing.
                                                        “Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
“Nothing?”

       I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”   
          
                                                                           But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
“What shall we ever do?”

35
                                               The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

  When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—

I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

36
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

              III. The Fire Sermon

  The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf

Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation

Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.

37
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit

Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,

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The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,

Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”

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When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

“This music crept by me upon the waters”

And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

               The river sweats

               Oil and tar
               The barges drift
               With the turning tide
               Red sails
               Wide
               To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
               The barges wash
               Drifting logs
               Down Greenwich reach
               Past the Isle of Dogs.
                                 Weialala leia
                                 Wallala leialala

               Elizabeth and Leicester

               Beating oars
               The stern was formed

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               A gilded shell
               Red and gold
               The brisk swell
               Rippled both shores
               Southwest wind
               Carried down stream
               The peal of bells
               White towers
                                Weialala leia
                                Wallala leialala

“Trams and dusty trees.

Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”

“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart

Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?”

“On Margate Sands.

I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.”
                       la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning

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O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

              IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
                                   A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
                                   Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

              V. What the Thunder Said

  After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

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Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
                                      If there were water
   And no rock
   If there were rock
   And also water
   And water
   A spring
   A pool among the rock
   If there were the sound of water only
   Not the cicada
   And dry grass singing
   But sound of water over a rock
   Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
   Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
   But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

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But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air

Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight

And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,

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Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves

Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded

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Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
 
                                    I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
                  Shantih     shantih     shantih

W.B.Yeats
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

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A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
The darkness drops again; but now I know   
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Imagist Poetry
Ezra Pound
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

New Apocalypse and Postmodern

poetry
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

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 Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!

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Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Allen Ginsberg
Syllables at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center
.Tail turned to red sunset on a juniper crown a lone magpie cawks
.Mad at Oryoki in the shrine-room -- Thistles blossomed late afternoon
.Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun walking the path to lunch
.A dandelion seed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitos
.At 4 A.M. the two middleaged men sleeping together holding hands
.In the half-light of dawn a few birds warble under the Pleiades
.Sky reddens behind fir trees, larks twitter, sparrows cheep cheep cheepcheep cheep

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