I So Liked Spring -- Charlotte Mew

(Poem #1141) I So Liked Spring I so liked Spring last year Because you were here; -- The thrushes too -- Because it was these you so liked to hear -- I so liked you. This year's a different thing, -- I'll not think of you. But I'll like Spring because it is simply Spring As the thrushes do. -- Charlotte Mew

One of the things I enjoy about love poetry is the thousand subtle
variations played upon every theme, the appeal to universal emotions and
experiences that manage to be at once common to every poem and different in
each one of them.

Today's poem is, indeed, combined out of several common themes and elements.
Where its beauty lies is in the delicate arrangement of those elements, the
simple but precise combination of images and the way they blend into a
complete poem. Even the rather faltering metre and phrasing are a deliberate
and carefully crafted effect, echoing the narrator's 'simple' outlook - as
Shine Kannikkatt put it in his comment to Poem #1084, there is a
  'vulnerability' evident in this and others like Teasdale's works [...]
  poems which remind us of the preciousness of life / small things which
  does have big impacts and 'longing' etc.
that definitely adds to the poem's appeal.

martin

Links:
  Biography:
    [broken link] http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/poetry/charlotte_mew.shtml
    http://www.sappho.com/poetry/c_mew.html

  Minstrels Links:
    Poem #315: Hilaire Belloc, 'Juliet'
    Poem #430: Sara Teasdale, 'Wild Asters'

Sea Love -- Charlotte Mew

Guest poem sent in by Tom Lincoln

(Poem #431) Sea Love Tide be runnin' the great world over. 'Twas only last June month I mind that we Was thinkin' the toss and call in the breast of the lover So everlastin' as the sea. Here's the same little fishies that sputter and swim, Wi' the moon's old glim on the grey, wet sand: An' him no more to me or me to him Then the wind goin' over my hand. -- Charlotte Mew

I first heard the poem when it was read by a visiting lecturer at our high
school about 1947. It kept ringing in my head, but I could never find it or
quote it completely. All I could recall was that it was written by a woman
poet with a name that began with "M". For years I tried all of the usual
suspects, but never found it. Then I tried www.Dogpile.com.... and found
[broken link] http://www.execpc.com/~jon/sealove.html but without an author. Given the
title I went back into Dogpile and found
[broken link] http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/m/mew/sealove.html with the author Charlotte
Mew (1869-1928)...

Given that information with Dogpile again under
[broken link] http://www.sappho.com/poetry/historical/c_mew.html I found a full biography...

At 71 I found a poem that massively impressed me in my youth, when such
ephemeral relationships were common (and much regretted).

Luckily, it is not the story of my life.

Tom Lincoln