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Songs from an Evil Wood -- Lord Dunsany

A doubly appropriate poem...
(Poem #259) Songs from an Evil Wood
                 I.

 There is no wrath in the stars,
       They do not rage in the sky;
 I look from the evil wood
       And find myself wondering why.

 Why do they not scream out
       And grapple star against star,
 Seeking for blood in the wood,
       As all things round me are?

 They do not glare like the sky
       Or flash like the deeps of the wood;
 But they shine softly on
       In their sacred solitude.

 To their happy haunts
       Silence from us has flown,
 She whom we loved of old
       And know it now she is gone.

 When will she come again
       Though for one second only?
 She whom we loved is gone
       And the whole world is lonely.

 And the elder giants come
       Sometimes, tramping from far,
 Through the weird and flickering light
       Made by an earthly star.

 And the giant with his club,
       And the dwarf with rage in his breath,
 And the elder giants from far,
       They are the children of Death.

 They are all abroad to-night
       And are breaking the hills with their brood,
 And the birds are all asleep,
       Even in Plugstreet Wood.

                 II.

 Somewhere lost in the haze
       The sun goes down in the cold,
 And birds in this evil wood
       Chirrup home as of old;

 Chirrup, stir and are still,
       On the high twigs frozen and thin.
 There is no more noise of them now,
       And the long night sets in.

 Of all the wonderful things
       That I have seen in the wood,
 I marvel most at the birds,
       At their chirp and their quietude.

 For a giant smites with his club
       All day the tops of the hill,
 Sometimes he rests at night,
       Oftener he beats them still.

 And a dwarf with a grim black mane
       Raps with repeated rage
 All night in the valley below
       On the wooden walls of his cage.

                 III.

 I met with Death in his country,
       With his scythe and his hollow eye
 Walking the roads of Belgium.
       I looked and he passed me by.

 Since he passed me by in Plug Street,
       In the wood of the evil name,
 I shall not now lie with the heroes,
       I shall not share their fame;

 I shall never be as they are,
       A name in the land of the Free,
 Since I looked on Death in Flanders
       And he did not look at me.
-- Lord Dunsany
I was considering interrupting this week's theme to post a World War I poem,
and will admit to getting carried away by the sheer serendipity of finding
one written by a fantasy author.

Like Wodehouse, Dunsany's prose is far better than his poetry; still,
today's poem gives some indication of his style - highly coloured,
imaginative, abundantly supplied with imagery and atmosphere, and fantastic
in every sense of the word.

The last section anchors the poem directly in reality (Dunsany was a WW1
veteran), and involves a fairly noticeable change in style. The images are
quieter, and less 'wild', the tense shifts slightly into reminiscence.
While in no way original (all the images and concepts have been used time
and again, and by a number of poets) it winds up the poem nicely and leaves
the reader with an interesting blend of the more ominous aspects of fantasy
and reality.

Biography:

  Dunsany, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th baron of

   b. July 24, 1878, London d. Oct. 25, 1957, Dublin

  Irish dramatist and storyteller, whose many popular works combined
  imaginative power with intellectual ingenuity to create a credible world
  of fantasy.

  Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, Dunsany served in the South African War
  and World War I. His first book of short stories was The Gods of Pegana
  (1905); his first play, The Glittering Gate, was produced by the Abbey
  Theatre in Dublin in 1909; and his first London production, The Gods of
  the Mountain, at the Haymarket Theatre in 1911. As in his more than 50
  subsequent verse plays, novels, short stories and memoirs, in these works
  Dunsany explored in a richly coloured prose mysterious kingdoms of fairies
  and gods; he also introduced a characteristic element of the macabre.

        -- EB

Links:

For a wonderful site on Lord Dunsany, see
  <[broken link] http://www.interlog.com/~case/support/dunsany.html>

Some WW1 and related poems run previously on Minstrels:

  'In Flanders Fields', probably both the best-known and the best WW1 poem: poem #11
  'Tommy' - not directly WW1 related, but nonetheless relevant: poem #43
  'Dover Beach': poem #89

m.

14 comments: ( or Leave a comment )

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Anonymous said...

フロントにも、彼女はいい子ですが、彼らは必然的に私の目的を超えて達成するための行為の一部を渡すことになるでしょうので、私とLは、会社の競争が存在する、と述べた。
この時点まで、私は今日非常に落ち着いています。



月上旬、私は、彼は基本的には、コールの進行状況、または数GAB皮膚について話をする私に毎日を打つWは、グッチ アウトレット全活性が行くと判断し設定していると語った。しかし、ある日、私と紛争からの部下、一つ以上の、およびフィードバックは、彼らが私に裸の不満を考え出すことです。私のために若くてナイーブについては、私はちょうどその泣き始め、不当な扱いや不当な扱いを受けた感じ。
その後、私たちは本当にそれの性能を考慮して人間的に可能なすべてをやっているこの点を率い、私は通常、私はすでに変形した顔を泣いていたので、でも、エアジョーダン 通販半日オフ私を置く、働く。



家の周りにクレイポットを食べることのように引っ越し会社のうち、正午には、、、クレイポットところ、道路、その道であるW社は、もちろん、私の心の際には、Wの合計だけで起こっていると言わ醤油のお客様のみ、無の状態ですべての。 。 。しかし、私はクレイポットに到達しようとしていたその瞬間に、いつものように、Wの合計は私に電話をヒット。私がピックアップしておらず、いくつかの単語を言うために彼のナンセンスShengruhongzhongに耳を傾け、あなたが通常の音声を置くために努力したいのですが、方法。彼は何が起こったか私に尋ねた、例外を私を聞いて、私は単に私がスリープ状態に家に帰りたいと言って、彼は彼の会社への説明もなしにすぐに私を命じた、と何かを言ったが、午後にされている可能性が戻ってプッシュプッシュ、言ったいずれかの説明は、ああすぐに来るので、あなたが言ったことなく、彼はまだある。
はい、これはゆっく??りと全背面断定的かつ決定的な一貫性のあるキャラクター、Wの私の理解で、他の誰かに会いたいと、人々がアレンジ助けるように、疑問視することはできません。




彼らは4つの個別の企業の合計である彼の会社、自社の人はすべて驚くほどである日、に行き、一日は、彼だけでなく、2妹は杭州のほか、会計士に彼に続いていることを、全部であることが判明した。gucci バッグ



彼は私にお茶を与えた水を燃やしたことも、若い女の子が意図的に買いに行きました階下に呼ばれるように言われているもののテーブルクルミの種子にスナックの多くを共有した。最後に、彼は非常にビジー状態であるため、携帯電話のノンストップ、単に断片的ないくつかの単語を言って私に耳を傾ける座ったが、私が遭遇した、また言って単語または2である、達成tucaoどのように良い言うことはありません
ああ。



その後、彼は仕事の外に望んでいる、と私はあなたが私にしばらくを駆動することができると言って、彼と一緒に行きましょう。私は悲しいときにはとても良い、私を助けようと、私を慰め、時間を思い出し、私たちはお互いを好きで、信頼された友人のように、実際には気晴らしではない。

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