translated by Michael Alexander. Old English alliterative verse - I just love it. thomas.
Ice -- Anonymous
On the Eve of His Execution -- Chidiock Tichborne
Guest Poem sent in by Siddhartha Joshi
(Poem #144) On the Eve of His Execution My prime of youth is but a frost of cares, My feast of joy is but a dish of pain, My crop of corn is but a field of tares, And all my good is but vain hope of gain; The day is past, and yet I saw no sun, And now I live, and now my life is done. My tale was heard and yet it was not told, My fruit is fallen, yet my leaves are green, My youth is spent and yet I am not old, I saw the world and yet I was not seen; My thread is cut and yet it is not spun, And now I live and now my life is done. I sought my death and found it in my womb, I looked for life and found it was a shade, I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb, And now I die, and now I was but made; My glass is full, and now my glass is run, And now I live, and now my life is done. |
Chidiock Tichborne is a name as obscure as it is odd. The antiquarian syllables, remembered only by a few, are difficult to place and harder to locate. Tichborne does not appear in either The Golden Treasury or the Oxford Book of English Verse or the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Yet he wrote one of the most moving poems of his century. Tichborne was not pre-eminently a poet but a conspirator. History is not sure of the part he played in the attempt to do away with Queen Elizabeth. Conjecture has it that he was born about 1558 somewhere in Southampton, and it is said that his father, Peter Tichburne, traced his descent from Roger de Tichburne, a knight in the reign of Henry II. His family was ardently Catholic and both Chidiock and his father were zealous champions of the Church of Rome; they did not scruple to abet the king of Spain in "holy" attacks on the English government. In 1583, Chidiock and his father were questioned concerning the possession and use of certain "popish relics"; somewhat later they were further implicated as to their "sacrilegious and subversive practices". In April 1586, Chidiock joined a group of conspirators. In June, at a meeting held in St.Giles-in-the-Fields he agreed to be one of the six who were pledged to murder the Queen and restore the kingdom to Rome. The conspiracy was discovered in time; most of the conspirators fled. But Tichborne, who had remained in London because of an injured leg, was captured on August 14th and taken to the Tower. On September 14th, he was tried and pled guilty. He was executed on September 20th. In a grim finale, history relates, he was "disembowelled before life was extinct" and the news of the barbarity "reached the ears of Elizabeth, who forbade the recurrence." On September 19, 1586, the night before he was executed, Chidiock wrote to his wife Agnes. The letter enclosed three stanzas beginning:"My prime of youth is but a frost of cares." This elegy is so restrained yet so eloquent, so spontaneous, and so skillfully made that it must be ranked among the little masterpieces of literature. The grave but not yet depressing music of the lines is emphasized by the repetition of the rhymed refrain, as though the poet were anticipating the slow tolling of the bell announcing his death. He was twenty-eight years old. [Louis Untermeyer]
Harp Song of the Dane Women -- Rudyard Kipling
(Poem #143) Harp Song of the Dane Women What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker? She has no house to lay a guest in--- But one chill bed for all to rest in, That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in. She has no strong white arms to fold you, But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you--- Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you. Yet, when the signs of summer thicken, And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken, Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken--- Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters. You steal away to the lapping waters, And look at your ship in her winter-quarters. You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables, The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables--- To pitch her sides and go over her cables. Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow, And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow, Is all we have left through the months to follow. Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker ? |
This poem pretty much speaks for itself - I could rhapsodize about the compelling rhythms, the unusual rhyme-scheme, the evocative imagery; but I won't. I will say, however, that 'the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in' is an utterly beautiful image. m. Kipling: See Poem #17, Poem #29 and Poem #43 PS. Lovely, lovely poem - t.
He chanted a song of wizardry -- J R R Tolkien
(Poem #142) He chanted a song of wizardry He chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.
Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong
The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,
And all the magic and might he brought
Of Elvenesse into his words.
Softly in the gloom they heard the birds
Singing afar in Nargothrond,
The sighing of the Sea beyond,
Beyond the western world, on sand,
On sand of pearls in Elvenland.
Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing
In Valinor, the red blood flowing
Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew
The Foamriders, and stealing drew
Their white ships with their white sails
From lamplit havens. The wind wails,
The wolf howls. The ravens flee.
The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.
The captives sad in Angband mourn.
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn ---
And Finrod fell before the throne.
|
Context: This is an extract from the 'Lay of Leithian', an epic poem of
several thousand lines which was among the earliest of Tolkien's
explorations of the mythology of Middle Earth. The details of the plot
need not bother us; suffice to say that today's poem describes a duel
between Finrod Felagund (the good guy) and Sauron (the bad guy). Finrod
loses.
While the motif of duelling Wizards is as old as mythology itself,
Tolkien adds a new twist to the theme by making the duel a contest of
songs. Sauron (the unnamed adversary) and Finrod fill their songs with
words describing what they stand for, what they believe in [1]. Thus
Finrod speaks of the beauty and mystery of Valinor, music and meaning
and the 'magic and might ... of Elvenesse', while Sauron's words are of
betrayal and treachery, of darkness and doom and 'the red blood
flowing'. The final victory goes to Sauron because of a crime in
Finrod's past (the Kinslaying, referred to in lines 22 through 27) which
he must now 'atone' for...
The language is, as ever, exquisite; Tolkien conjures up wonderfully
evocative images with sublime skill. Notice especially the way the mood
changes between the second and third 'stanzas' [2] - in the former,
everything is smooth and graceful: the repetition of words like 'sand'
and 'beyond' helps ease the transition from one line to the next,
contibuting to the gentle, even flow of the syllables. Conversely, in
the latter, the rhythm is broken into harsh, choppy fragments ('The wind
wails / The wolf howls. The ravens flee.'), remorselessly grim and
bleak. Form and content, my friends, form and content.
There's a nice element of self-reference (one of my favourite themes, in
case you haven't noticed) running through it all; indeed, there are
times when it's impossible to distinguish between the precise words
spoken by the two sorcerers and the worlds these words conjure up. Words
have a power of their own; the concept of using them to do battle, of
course, is particularly Tolkienesque (and particularly nice, might I add
:-))
thomas..
Notes:
[1] This harks back to the old mythological conceit (since used by any
number of sf&f writers) that one who knows your true name has power over
you.
[2] It's worth remembering that this is not meant to be a stand-alone
poem; rather, it is (as I mentioned above) just a tiny excerpt from a
much larger work. Hence any division into 'stanzas', or any attempt to
demarcate a beginning or an ending - indeed, any sort of deep-structure
analysis - is meaningless.
Glossary:
A (far too detailed) glossary of terms for the
Tolkienitically-challenged followeth:
Finrod - (Sindarin, from Quenya 'Findarato': 'son of Fin(we)-mighty')
this Elf dude who really rocks, y'know :-)
Felagund - (Dwarvish: 'Hewer of caves') - epithet applied to Finrod,
because of his construction of the cavern stronghold of Nargothrond.
Nargothrond - (Sindarin: 'Halls of the river Narog') Finrod's cavern
stronghold :-)
Elvenesse - the lands of the Elves (duh!)
Valinor - (Sindarin: 'the land of the Valar') - Well, if you really must
know, this is the land to the west of Belegaer (the Great Ocean) whence
the Noldor (q.v.) came to Middle Earth (against the wishes of their
angelic guardians, the aforementioned Valar) to pursue a course of
revenge upon Morgoth (see 'Angband'.) because he, Morgoth, had stolen
the fabulous jewels known as the Silmarils from them, the Noldor. Don't
say I didn't warn you.
Noldor - (Quenya: 'those with knowledge') - the race of Elves to which
Finrod belonged.
Angband - (Sindarin: 'the Hells of Iron') - the underground fortress and
stronghold (I like that word) of Morgoth, the Great Enemy and Sauron's
boss.
Leithian - (Sindarin?: 'Release from bondage')
Websites:
There are (literally) thousands of Tolkien sites out there. My favourite
is probably the Encyclopaedia of Arda - http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/ -
though I have to admit there are many more which I haven't seen.
As per a reader request, from now on our poetry mails will contain a
link to our home page - http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/ .
Recent subscribers, do pay it a visit and check out all our previous
poems.
The City in the Sea -- Edgar Allan Poe
Forwarding Martin's poems while he's away...
(Poem #141) The City in the Sea Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently- Gleams up the pinnacles far and free- Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls- Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls- Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers- Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down. There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye- Not the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl, alas! Along that wilderness of glass- No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea- No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene. But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave- there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide- As if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven. The waves have now a redder glow- The hours are breathing faint and low- And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence. |
This is one of Poe's typical, 'atmospheric' poems, gloomy, and with the
mystical, almost eldritch atmosphere that hints at, but never quite
reveals, the supernatural horrors lurking beneath the surface. This is
the true darker side of the sea; not the violent and death-dealing
aspect, but the 'hideously serene' waters that entomb a city ruled by
Death. Compare the descriptions of the sea in Coleridge's 'Rime of the
Ancient Mariner', and note that for a sailor, a still sea often could
mean death - the world of difference between 'calm' and 'becalmed' - and
'hideously serene' becomes less of an oxymoron.
Formwise, the verse seems to be a bit less regular than usual, with
several breaks in the metre, most notably omitted unstressed syllables.
Examining some of the latter, phrases like 'dim west' and 'dull tide'
suggest that Poe's aim was to create a heavy, deadening effect. I won't
go over the formal analysis in detail, except to note that the long line
in the first verse ('where the good and the bad...) might be influenced
by Coleridge's "the sky and the sea and the sea and the sky" (and then,
again, it might not, but it's an interesting point.)
m.
Glossary:
fane: A temple
Poe-related stuff: See Poem #85
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