Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread" -- Vachel Lindsay

(Poem #1718) Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread" Even the shrewd and bitter, Gnarled by the old world's greed, Cherished the stranger softly Seeing his utter need. Shelter and patient hearing, These were their gifts to him, To the minstrel chanting, begging, As the sunset-fire grew dim. The rich said "you are welcome." Yea, even the rich were good. How strange that in their feasting His songs were understood! The doors of the poor were open, The poor who had wandered too, Who slept with never a roof-tree Under the wind and dew. The minds of the poor were open, There dark mistrust was dead: They loved his wizard stories, They bought his rhymes with bread. Those were his days of glory, Of faith in his fellow-men. Therefore to-day the singer Turns beggar once again. -- Vachel Lindsay

Commenting on Stevenson's "The Vagabond" [Poem #780], a less-than-charmed
reader said

  I think the poem stinks! It is the tale of a totally selfish bum!  It
  speaks of an existence that leads no where, with no purpose........not
  even a desire for love!  Pure trash IMO. Perhaps value can be salvaged by
  making it the example of 'what not to be...do...think..believe..etc

Well, I don't agree with him, but nor can I deny that it is a perfectly
valid reading of the poem. However, I was also reminded of today's poem,
which sings of a much more "human" aspect of the joys of the road, of the
kindness extended to a stranger and the appreciation of the wandering
minstrel's art.

Lindsay's poetry is very reminiscent of Kipling's, both for his appreciation
of the rhythmic aspects of poetry and for the nature and diversity of the
subjects he tackled. (And, in passing, for the accusations of racism
levelled against him by a more enlightened generation; accusations that are
often founded in little more than his being a product of his times, and for
having had the temerity to outlast them.) Unlike with Kipling, I can't read
too much of Lindsay in one sitting, but in short doses I find him both
pleasurable and thought provoking. Today's quietly restrained poem is an
excellent example of both aspects.

martin

The Joys of the Road -- Bliss Carman

(Poem #1717) The Joys of the Road Now the joys of the road are chiefly these: A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees; A vagrant's morning wide and blue, In early fall, when the wind walks too; A shadowy highway cool and brown, Alluring up and enticing down From rippled water to dappled swamp, From purple glory to scarlet pomp; The outward eye, the quiet will, And the striding heart from hill to hill; The tempter apple over the fence; The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince; The palish asters along the wood,-- A lyric touch of solitude; An open hand, an easy shoe, And a hope to make the day go through,-- Another to sleep with, and a third To wake me up at the voice of a bird; A scrap of gossip at the ferry; A comrade neither glum nor merry, Who never defers and never demands, But, smiling, takes the world in his hands,-- Seeing it good as when God first saw And gave it the weight of his will for law. And oh, the joy that is never won, But follows and follows the journeying sun, By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream, A will-o'-the-wind, a light-o'-dream, The racy smell of the forest loam, When the stealthy sad-heart leaves go home; The broad gold wake of the afternoon; The silent fleck of the cold new moon; The sound of the hollow sea's release From stormy tumult to starry peace; With only another league to wend; And two brown arms at the journey's end! These are the joys of the open road-- For him who travels without a load. -- Bliss Carman

I was rather surprised not to find any of Carman's poems in the archive - I
distinctly remembered earmarking him, along with Lampman and Pratt, for the
long-ago Canadian theme, though now that I go back and check, I see that I
omitted him for lack of familiarity. Today's long-overdue poem should
finally address this omission.

Moving on to the poem itself, I enjoyed it for its easy, meandering flow
through the quiet pleasures of the open road. I couldn't help contrasting it
with Stevenson's "From a Railway Carriage" [Poem #84], which uses a similar
pattern of cascading couplets - read the two poems side by side for a
fascinating look at how the latter evokes a sense of tumbling haste and the
former unhurried leisure with what is superficially a very similar form. A
better companion piece to today's poem is perhaps Robert Francis's "Silent
Poem" [Poem #323], a poem with a different focus but a very similar sense of
quiet backroad beauty.

And finally, a nice piece of trivia for all you Wodehouse fans - the poet
Ralston McTodd (of "pale parabola of joy" fame) was, apparently, a
caricature of Carman:
        It seems more than likely that P.G. Wodehouse had Carman in mind (and
  perhaps Robert Service and Wilson MacDonald as well) when he created the
  Ralston McTodd of Leave It to Psmith (1924); the author of "Songs Squalor"
  and other volumes, McTodd is a "powerful young singer of Saskatoon," a
  "gloomy looking young man with long and disordered hair," whose "wonderful
  poems . . . are, of course, known the whole world over" (so at least says
  one of his admirers).
     -- http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/cpjrn/vol14/bentley.htm

martin

[Links]

Biography:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_Carman
  http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/garvin/poets/carman.html

Some brief but enthusiastic assessments:

  'In his time, he was arguably Canada's best known poet, and was dubbed by
  some the "unofficial poet laureate of Canada."'
    -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_Carman

  A recent reading of the published verse of Bliss Carman, has convinced
  me that he must soon be more widely recognized as a poet of preëminent
  genius. He is greater than some of more extended fame for the reason
  that his poetry expresses a nobler and more comprehensive philosophy of
  life and being. Bliss Carman has achieved more greatly than many others
  of this generation, because he has realized more fully than they that
  the Infinite Poet is constantly and eternally seeking media for
  expression, and that the function of a finite poet is to steadily
  improve the instrument, to keep it expectantly in tune, and to record
  the masterpieces.
    -- http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/garvin/poets/canadian-poets.html

Untitled -- Dag Hammarskjöld

Guest poem submitted by Dave Fortin:

(Poem #1716) Untitled The mine-detector Weaves its old patter Without end. Words without import Are lobbed to and fro Between us. Forgotten intrigues With their spider's web Snare our hands. Choked by its clown's mask And quite dry, my mind Is crumbling. -- Dag Hammarskjöld

        (translated by Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden)

I saw this referenced by Arthur Schlessinger in his Kennedy biography, A
Thousand Days.  Hammarskjöld was the UN Secretary General at the height of
the Cold War, seeing first hand the back and forth of a period where Time
itself almost came to an end.  After his tragic death trying to negotiate a
peace in The Congo, his journal of poetry and thoughts, entitled Markings,
was discovered in his home.  It was translated into English by Leif Sjöberg
and W. H. Auden.  THis poem struck me as an insight into the mind of the
negotiator, who has to put up with old intrigues and has to act as a mine
sweeper when attempting to work his way through argument and counter
argument, all the while putting on a "clown's face".

For more on this remarkable and largely forgotten man, see his biography on
the Nobel Prize website at
http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1961/hammarskjold-bio.html

Best,
Dave Fortin.

A Dream Within a Dream -- Edgar Allan Poe

Guest poem sent in by Jennifer McWhorter

(Poem #1715) A Dream Within a Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow -- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand -- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep -- while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?. -- Edgar Allan Poe

I'm rather astounded that Minstrels doesn't have this one already.  I love
this poem's sense of sad futility, the desire to save the moments of one's
life from slipping away before the dream of living is ended. The questions
raised cause me to look deep inside myself and ask "So, what's the purpose?
Is it real?"

I think many people have experienced that sensation of the time slipping
away from them, and wanting to slow it down, stop it. Unable to do so, we
stand there and let it slide through our fingers, losing precious moments
forever, unable to stop time's march.

And the question remains: Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a
dream? Nobody knows, everybody wonders. Maybe we find out when all of those
grains of sand have ended for each of us. Maybe not. It will be interesting
to find out.

-Jenn

Geetanjali -- Rabindranath Tagore

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul, an excerpt from:

(Poem #1714) Geetanjali Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted. -- Rabindranath Tagore

It's been a while since we did a Tagore poem (the last one was in Jan 2004),
so figured would send in one of my personal favourites.

I'm not as a general rule a big Tagore fan. Maybe it's because as a true
city person I find all his bucolic charm difficult to relate to. Maybe it's
because I'm too cynical to approach simple beauty with anything but active
suspicion. Whatever the reason, I've always found him somewhat long-winded,
cloying and repetitive. I can open Geetanjali at random and read a poem or
two and be moved by them, but every time I've tried reading the whole thing
through I end up with a vaguely queasy feeling in my stomach - like eating
too many rosogullas.

This poem is the one exception - it's a poem that I'm haunted by, a poem
whose very words have become almost a habit of thought (if we were still
running the 'poems you remember' theme, this one would qualify). Part of why
I like it is the abruptness of it - the lines here are short, the rhythm a
brisk point-counterpoint. Tagore doesn't go on and on, he deals instead in a
desperate precision that pierces straight to the heart. There is a sense (as
in all of Tagore's best work) of every word being carefully selected. As a
result, it is an intensely honest and heartfelt poem. If the real beauty of
Tagore is in his simplicity, then I can think of few better examples.

But for all the simplicity of the language, it is also an extremely
difficult poem, because the mental state it describes - a sort of shrinking
away from hope and expectation - is a fundamentally complex, if a scarily
real one.  And that perhaps, is why it is my favourite Tagore poem - because
instead of expressing simple devotion or childish wonder (or muttering high
sounding platitudes - witness 'Where the mind is without fear', Poem #177),
Tagore gives us a portrait of a real state of mind, so that (for once) I
find myself truly able to relate to his work.

Aseem.