Auguries of Innocence -- William Blake

(Poem #368) Auguries of Innocence To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage. A dove house fill'd with doves & Pigeons Shudders Hell thro' all its regions. A dog starv'd at his Master's Gate Predicts the ruin of the State. A Horse misus'd upon the Road Calls to Heaven for Human blood. Each outcry of the hunted Hare A fibre from the Brain does tear. A Skylark wounded in the wing, A Cherubim does cease to sing. The Game Cock clipp'd and arm'd for fight Does the Rising Sun affright. Every Wolf's & Lion's howl Raises from Hell a Human Soul. The wild deer, wand'ring here & there, Keeps the Human Soul from Care. The Lamb misus'd breeds public strife And yet forgives the Butcher's Knife. The Bat that flits at close of Eve Has left the Brain that won't believe. The Owl that calls upon the Night Speaks the Unbeliever's fright. He who shall hurt the little Wren Shall never be belov'd by Men. He who the Ox to wrath has mov'd Shall never be by Woman lov'd. The wanton Boy that kills the Fly Shall feel the Spider's enmity. He who torments the Chafer's sprite Weaves a Bower in endless Night. The Caterpillar on the Leaf Repeats to thee thy Mother's grief. Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly, For the Last Judgement draweth nigh. He who shall train the Horse to War Shall never pass the Polar Bar. The Beggar's Dog & Widow's Cat, Feed them & thou wilt grow fat. The Gnat that sings his Summer's song Poison gets from Slander's tongue. The poison of the Snake & Newt Is the sweat of Envy's Foot. The poison of the Honey Bee Is the Artist's Jealousy. The Prince's Robes & Beggars' Rags Are Toadstools on the Miser's Bags. A truth that's told with bad intent Beats all the Lies you can invent. It is right it should be so; Man was made for Joy & Woe; And when this we rightly know Thro' the World we safely go. Joy & Woe are woven fine, A Clothing for the Soul divine; Under every grief & pine Runs a joy with silken twine. The Babe is more than swaddling Bands; Throughout all these Human Lands Tools were made, & born were hands, Every Farmer Understands. Every Tear from Every Eye Becomes a Babe in Eternity. This is caught by Females bright And return'd to its own delight. The Bleat, the Bark, Bellow & Roar Are Waves that Beat on Heaven's Shore. The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath Writes Revenge in realms of death. The Beggar's Rags, fluttering in Air, Does to Rags the Heavens tear. The Soldier arm'd with Sword & Gun, Palsied strikes the Summer's Sun. The poor Man's Farthing is worth more Than all the Gold on Afric's Shore. One Mite wrung from the Labrer's hands Shall buy & sell the Miser's lands: Or, if protected from on high, Does that whole Nation sell & buy. He who mocks the Infant's Faith Shall be mock'd in Age & Death. He who shall teach the Child to Doubt The rotting Grave shall ne'er get out. He who respects the Infant's faith Triumph's over Hell & Death. The Child's Toys & the Old Man's Reasons Are the Fruits of the Two seasons. The Questioner, who sits so sly, Shall never know how to Reply. He who replies to words of Doubt Doth put the Light of Knowledge out. The Strongest Poison ever known Came from Caesar's Laurel Crown. Nought can deform the Human Race Like the Armour's iron brace. When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow. A Riddle or the Cricket's Cry Is to Doubt a fit Reply. The Emmet's Inch & Eagle's Mile Make Lame Philosophy to smile. He who Doubts from what he sees Will ne'er believe, do what you Please. If the Sun & Moon should doubt They'd immediately Go out. To be in a Passion you Good may do, But no Good if a Passion is in you. The Whore & Gambler, by the State Licenc'd, build that Nation's Fate. The Harlot's cry from Street to Street Shall weave Old England's winding Sheet. The Winner's Shout, the Loser's Curse, Dance before dead England's Hearse. Every Night & every Morn Some to Misery are Born. Every Morn & every Night Some are Born to sweet Delight. Some are Born to sweet Delight, Some are born to Endless Night. We are led to Believe a Lie When we see not Thro' the Eye Which was Born in a Night to Perish in a Night When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light. God Appears & God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in the Night, But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of day. -- William Blake

Blake, even more than Milton, is the poet of Righteous Fury: at times,
his indignation with all that is corrupt in his coutry and his religion
spills unchecked into the pages of his work. Coupled with his vivid,
often hallucinatory imagery and his deceptively simple syntax, this has
resulted in a number of wonderful poems which are unparalleled in their
power and honesty. So much so, in fact, that certain critics have
bestowed upon him the title of 'Greatest Poet Ever'.

While I think this is probably overstating it a bit (if for no other
reason than that all such epithets are a waste of time, imho), I do
agree that he can be absolutely amazing.

'Auguries of Innocence' is Blake at his most, errm, Blakean, so to speak
- all his usual themes are stated, with a passion which would border on
self-parody if it were not for the absolute firmness of his convictions,
the strength of his beliefs. The language is simple, yet powerful; the
thoughts are direct enough to make an impact, yet subtle enough to avoid
being trite moralizings; the poem as a whole is a moral masterpiece.

thomas.

[Trivia]

Several of the couplets in 'Auguries of Innocence' have achieved
immortality, one way or another.

   "The Caterpillar on the Leaf
    Reminds thee of thy Mother's grief."
was published as a standalone poem by Blake (note the slight change in
syntax - 'repeats to thee' becomes 'reminds thee of'; I prefer the
latter version myself), and has been the subject of endless critical
analysis (ranging from scriptural to Freudian to deconstructionist).

   "Some are Born to sweet Delight,
    Some are born to Endless Night."
features in a 'End of the Night', a brilliantly hallucinatory song by
the Doors, on their eponymous first album.

   "The Bat that flits at close of Eve
    Has left the Brain that won't believe."
gave rise to
   "The Bat that Blocks at Close of Play
    Stays on to Score another Day.'
which brilliant parody is (I think) due to Wendy Cope (though I could be
wrong).

   "The Harlot's cry from Street to Street
    Shall weave Old England's winding Sheet."
has resonances with
   "But most, through midnight streets, I hear
    How the youthful harlot's curse
    Blasts the newborn infants tear,
    And blights with plagues the marriage hearse."
from another famous Blake poem, 'London'.

[Minstrels Links]

There's a biography and critical assessment accompanying 'Jerusalem', at
poem #26

One poem that _everybody_ knows is 'The Tyger', at poem #66

Another much-anthologized Blake is 'The Fly', at poem #26

Krishnakali -- Rabindranath Tagore

It's a cool and rainy day in Tokyo, just perfect for me to send you this
guest poem submitted by Ron Heard :

(Poem #367) Krishnakali In the village they call her the dark girl but to me she is the flower Krishnakali On a cloudy day in a field I saw the dark girl's dark gazelle-eyes. She had no covering on her head, her loose hair had fallen on her back. Dark? However dark she be, I have seen her dark gazelleeyes. Two black cows were lowing, as it grew dark under the heavy clouds. So with anxious, hurried steps, the dark girl came from her hut. Raising her eyebrows toward the sky, she listened a moment to the clouds' rumble. Dark? However dark she be, I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes. A gust of the east wind rippled the rice plants. I was standing by a ridge, alone in the field. Whether or not she looked at me Is known only to us two. Dark? However dark she be, I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes. This how the Kohldark cloud rises in the northeast in Jaistha; the soft dark shadow descends on the Tamal grove in Asharh; and sudden delight floods the heart in the night of Sravan. Dark? However dark she be, I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes. To me she is the flower Krishnakali, whatever she may be called by others. In a field in Maynapara village I saw the dark girl's dark gazelle-eyes. She did not cover her head, not having the time to feel embarrassed. Dark? However dark she be, I have seen her dark gazelle-eyes. -- Rabindranath Tagore

Translated by J. C. Ghosh

I think my favourite love poem is Krishnakali, by Tagore.

I love the dreaminess emphasised by repetition -- the sort of repetition
that is natural in an infatuation. At the same time I love the
clear-eyed clarity of the particulars. Tagore has captured the self and
the woman, the mood and the reality.

(I heard the poem read over the radio, and found it on the web. I
haven't been able to find it in a printed version, so I hope the
transcription is correct)

Ron Heard

Child -- Sylvia Plath

Guest poem submitted by Dan Percival :

(Poem #366) Child Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing. I want to fill it with color and ducks, The zoo of the new Whose name you meditate-- April snowdrop, Indian pipe, Little Stalk without wrinkle, Pool in which images Should be grand and classical Not this troublous Wringing of hands, this dark Ceiling without a star. -- Sylvia Plath

This is one of those poems I am often tempted to call the best in the
English language.  Though "free verse," the meter and sound are
carefully structured to support the poem's literal and emotional
content.  I haven't seen any piece of writing that more poignantly and
subtly expresses both the hope for a new beginning that a child inspires
and the foreboding that the hurtful constructions of the adult world
will shape each new life and re-enact themselves.  I wish I had the
leisure to describe this in more detail...

I found a bio of Plath at
http://metalab.unc.edu/cheryb/women/Sylvia-Plath--bio and a shorter but
better-formatted one at [broken link] http://www.poets.org/LIT/poet/splath.htm

Dan Percival.

Boston -- John Collins Bossidy

(Poem #365) Boston And this is good old Boston The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots, And the Cabots talk only to God -- John Collins Bossidy

1910.

I like short poems.

Poems like 'Boston' come close to achieving perfection through their
simplicity. They don't strive for epic grandeur, for bold sweeps of
narrative or for weighty philosophy; what they strive for is something
much more difficult to achieve, that ineffable quality called 'elegance'
[1].

thomas.

[1] At this point I simply have to throw in one of my favourite
non-poetic quotes, Saint-Exupery's definition of engineering elegance:
"A designer knows he has attained perfection, not when there is nothing
to add, but when there is nothing to take away.".

[More short poems]

My favourite is Peter Porter's 'Instant Fish', at poem #64

Another lovely poem is 'Juliet' by Hilaire Belloc, at poem #315

The Minstrels site has lots of Imagist poetry; you can search the poet
index for works by Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and Hilda
Doolittle, at [broken link] http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/index_poet.html

The Imagists were strongly influenced by Haiku; it's worth checking out
works by Basho and Buson at the same link mentioned above.

[About the Boston Brahmins]

The insularity of the Lowells, Cabots, and their upper-crust Boston
Brahmin peers has become a topic of benign humor, best exemplified by
Cleveland Amory's unsurpassed anecdotal study of the breed, The Proper
Bostonians. Teasing stories about their ossified social conventions and
limited repertoire of first names aside, the clubbiness of these
powerful 19th-century mercantile dynasties shaped the city's design as
significantly as landfill and fire. Their wealth supported Boston's
banks, backed its real estate, invested in its capital bonds, and
endowed many of its institutions, from hospitals and schools to the
Athenæum and the symphony. Allied by marriages, education, and church
affiliations against Boston's swelling foreign-born population, Boston's
Harvard-educated Unitarian and Episcopalian Yankee oligarchy held
disproportionate sway over civic affairs through much of the 1800s. Even
a bank founded in 1816 at the behest of a Catholic archbishop and
patronized predominantly thereafter by Irish immigrants wasn't immune:
no Irish Catholic was named to its board of directors until the end of
WWII.

        -- Jeff Perk, The Story of Boston
(excerpted from the Boston handbook)
http://www.moon.com/travel_matters/hot_off_the_press/story_of_boston.html

The Patriot -- Robert Browning

Many thanks to Suresh Ramasubramanian, for reminding me of the anthology
wherein I first read this poem.

(Poem #364) The Patriot - An Old Story I It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad. The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year ago on this very day! II The air broke into a mist with bells, The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries. Had I said, "Good folks, mere noise repels - But give me your sun from yonder skies!" They had answered, "And afterward, what else?" III Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun, To give it my loving friends to keep. Nought man could do have I left undone, And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run. IV There's nobody on the house-tops now - Just a palsied few at the windows set - For the best of the sight is, all allow, At the Shambles' Gate - or, better yet, By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. V I go in the rain, and, more than needs, A rope cuts both my wrists behind, And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, For they fling, whoever has a mind, Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. VI Thus I entered Brescia, and thus I go! In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead. "Thou, paid by the World, - what dost thou owe Me?" God might have questioned; but now instead 'Tis God shall requite! I am safer so. -- Robert Browning

A poignant depiction of the fickleness of public opinion; this poem
ranks with the best of Empson and Auden in cataloguing the ebb and flow
of human affairs (specifically, politics). The first line has, of
course, passed into the language, but the entire poem is skilfully and
delicately constructed. The fifth stanza, I think, is my especial
favourite - simple, yet remarkably touching. One could say the same
about the poem as a whole.

thomas.

[Assessment]

Few poets have suffered more than Browning from hostile incomprehension
or misplaced admiration, both arising very often from a failure to
recognize the predominantly dramatic nature of his work. The bulk of his
writing before 1846 was for the theatre; thereafter his major poems
showed his increasing mastery of the dramatic monologue. This consists
essentially of a narrative spoken by a single character and amplified by
his comments on his story and the circumstances in which he is speaking.
From his own knowledge of the historical or other events described, or
else by inference from the poem itself, the reader is eventually enabled
to assess the intelligence and honesty of the narrator and the value of
the views he expresses.

...

During Browning's lifetime, critical recognition came rapidly after
1864; and, although his books never sold as well as his wife's or
Tennyson's, he thereafter acquired a considerable and enthusiastic
public. In the 20th century his reputation, along with those of the
other great Victorians, declined, and his work did not enjoy a wide
reading public, perhaps in part because of increasing skepticism of the
values implied in his poetry. He has, however, influenced many modern
poets, such as Robert Frost and Ezra Pound, partly through his
development of the dramatic monologue, with its emphasis on the
psychology of the individual and his stream of consciousness, but even
more through his success in writing about the variety of modern life in
language that owed nothing to convention. As long as technical
accomplishment, richness of texture, sustained imaginative power, and a
warm interest in humanity are counted virtues, Browning will be numbered
among the great English poets.

        -- EB

[Biography]

Browning, Robert

  b. May 7, 1812, London
  d. Dec. 12, 1889, Venice

The son of a clerk in the Bank of England in London, Browning received
only a slight formal education, although his father gave him a grounding
in Greek and Latin. In 1828 he attended classes at the University of
London but left after half a session. Apart from a journey to St.
Petersburg in 1834 with George de Benkhausen, the Russian consul
general, and two short visits to Italy in 1838 and 1844, he lived with
his parents in London until 1846, first at Camberwell and after 1840 at
Hatcham.

During this period (1832-46) he wrote his early long poems and most of
his plays. Browning's first published work, Pauline: A Fragment of a
Confession (1833, anonymous), although formally a dramatic monologue,
embodied many of his own adolescent passions and anxieties. Although it
received some favourable comment, it was attacked by John Stuart Mill,
who condemned the poet's exposure and exploitation of his own emotions
and his "intense and morbid self-consciousness." It was perhaps Mill's
critique that determined Browning never to confess his own emotions
again in his poetry but to write objectively. In 1835 he published
Paracelsus and in 1840 Sordello, both poems dealing with men of great
ability striving to reconcile the demands of their own personalities
with those of the world. Paracelsus was well received, but Sordello,
which made exacting demands on its reader's knowledge, was almost
universally declared incomprehensible.

Encouraged by the actor Charles Macready, Browning devoted his main
energies for some years to verse drama, a form that he had already
adopted for Strafford (1837). Between 1841 and 1846, in a series of
pamphlets under the general title of Bells and Pomegranates, he
published seven more plays in verse, including Pippa Passes (1841), A
Blot in the 'Scutcheon (produced in 1843), and Luria (1846). These, and
all his earlier works except Strafford, were printed at his family's
expense. Although Browning enjoyed writing for the stage, he was not
successful in the theatre, since his strength lay in depicting, as he
had himself observed of Strafford, "Action in Character, rather than
Character in Action."

By 1845 the first phase of Browning's life was near its end. In that
year he met Elizabeth Barrett. In her Poems (1844) Barrett had included
lines praising Browning, who wrote to thank her (January 1845). In May
they met and soon discovered their love for each other. Barrett had,
however, been for many years an invalid, confined to her room and
thought incurable. Her father, moreover, was a dominant and selfish man,
jealously fond of his daughter, who in turn had come to depend on his
love. When her doctors ordered her to Italy for her health and her
father refused to allow her to go, the lovers, who had been
corresponding and meeting regularly, were forced to act. They were
married secretly in September 1846; a week later they left for Pisa.

Throughout their married life, although they spent holidays in France
and England, their home was in Italy, mainly at Florence, where they had
a flat in Casa Guidi. Their income was small, although after the birth
of their son, Robert, in 1849 Mrs. Browning's cousin John Kenyon made
them an allowance of £100 a year, and on his death in 1856 he left them
£11,000.

Browning produced comparatively little poetry during his married life.
Apart from a collected edition in 1849 he published only Christmas-Eve
and Easter-Day (1850), an examination of different attitudes toward
Christianity, perhaps having its immediate origin in the death of his
mother in 1849; an introductory essay (1852) to some spurious letters of
Shelley, Browning's only considerable work in prose and his only piece
of critical writing; and Men and Women (1855). This was a collection of
51 poems--dramatic lyrics such as "Memorabilia," "Love Among the Ruins,"
and "A Toccata of Galuppi's"; the great monologues such as "Fra Lippo
Lippi," "How It Strikes a Contemporary," and "Bishop Blougram's
Apology"; and a very few poems in which implicitly ("By the Fireside")
or explicitly ("One Word More") he broke his rule and spoke of himself
and of his love for his wife. Men and Women, however, had no great sale,
and many of the reviews were unfavourable and unhelpful. Disappointed
for the first time by the reception of his work, Browning in the
following years wrote little, sketching and modeling in clay by day and
enjoying the society of his friends at night.

At last Mrs. Browning's health, which had been remarkably restored by
her life in Italy, began to fail. On June 29, 1861, she died in her
husband's arms. In the autumn he returned slowly to London with his
young son.

His first task on his return was to prepare his wife's Last Poems for
the press. At first he avoided company, but gradually he accepted
invitations more freely and began to move in society. Another collected
edition of his poems was called for in 1863, but Pauline was not
included. When his next book of poems, Dramatis Personae
(1864)--including "Abt Vogler," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," "Caliban upon
Setebos," and "Mr. Sludge, The Medium' "--reached two editions, it was
clear that Browning had at last won a measure of popular recognition.

In 1868-69 he published his greatest work, The Ring and the Book, based
on the proceedings in a murder trial in Rome in 1698. Grand alike in
plan and execution, it was at once received with enthusiasm, and
Browning was established as one of the most important literary figures
of the day. For the rest of his life he was much in demand in London
society. He spent his summers with friends in France, Scotland, or
Switzerland or, after 1878, in Italy.

The most important works of his last years, when he wrote with great
fluency, were the long narrative or dramatic poems, often dealing with
contemporary themes, such as Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (1871), Fifine
at the Fair (1872), Red Cotton Night-Cap Country (1873), The Inn Album
(1875), and the two series of Dramatic Idyls (1879 and 1880). He wrote a
number of poems on classical subjects, including Balaustion's Adventure
(1871) and Aristophanes' Apology (1875). In addition to many collections
of shorter poems--Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper (1876),
Jocoseria (1883), Ferishtah's Fancies (1884), and Asolando: Fancies and
Facts (1889)--Browning published toward the end of his life two books of
unusually personal origin--La Saisiaz (1878), at once an elegy for his
friend Anne Egerton-Smith and a meditation on mortality, and Parleyings
with Certain People of Importance in Their Day (1887), in which he
discussed books and ideas that had influenced him since his youth.

While staying in Venice in 1889, Browning caught cold, became seriously
ill, and died on December 12. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

        -- EB