(Poem #1191) A Farewell I
My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey:
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.
II
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever
One grand, sweet song.
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(1819-1875)
A prime example of what I call Good Advice to the Younger Generation - what
raises this one above the common herd, I think, is the supreme quotability
of the line "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever" - Kingsley
gets it absolutely right, though ironically the line itself is nothing if
not clever.
Whether one good line is enough to make a poem noteworthy is debatable -
personally, I believe it is, especially in so short a piece. It possibly
helps that I liked the quote long before I knew there was a poem attached to
it. I also belong to the school of poetry criticism that looks for a poem's
good points first, and speaks only later, if at all, of its flaws - this is,
after all, about the enjoyment of poetry far more than it is about its
dissection. (Which is not to say that I don't enjoy tearing into a
particularly bad poem every now and then :)).
martin
Links:
Biography of Kingsley:
http://www.bartleby.com/65/ki/Kingsley.html
And don't miss the connection to Poem #255
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