The Sea and the Hills -- Rudyard Kipling

(Poem #29) The Sea and the Hills Who hath desired the Sea? -- the sight of salt water unbounded -- The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded? The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing -- Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing -- His Sea in no showing the same his Sea and the same 'neath each showing: His Sea as she slackens or thrills? So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills! Who hath desired the Sea? -- the immense and contemptuous surges? The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges? The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder -- Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunder -- His Sea in no wonder the same his Sea and the same through each wonder: His Sea as she rages or stills? So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills. Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies? The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses? The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that declare it -- White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it -- His Sea as his fathers have dared -- his Sea as his children shall dare it: His Sea as she serves him or kills? So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills. Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather Inland, among dust, under trees -- inland where the slayer may slay him -- Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him His Sea from the first that betrayed -- at the last that shall never betray him: His Sea that his being fulfils? So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills. -- Rudyard Kipling

Another wonderful poem by Kipling, and one that makes an interesting
contrast with Masefield's 'Sea Fever'. What both these poems are remarkable
for is the seamless integration of form and content; the way the words and
images are reinforced and enhanced by the rhythms of the poem. Masefield's
sea is an inviting one - playful and capricious, but not dangerous; whereas
here the overwhelming impression is one of ominous, brooding power, ready to
erupt into fury. And, of course, what would have been a beautiful sea poem
in its own right is only enhanced by the unexpected comparison at the end -
"So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills."

For Biography and Criticism see the previous Kipling poem; as for a somewhat
different view on 'who hath desired the sea' I quote Gilbert and Sullivan:

  To lay aloft in a howling breeze
  May tickle a landsman's taste,
  But the happiest hour a sailor sees
  Is when he's down
  At an inland town,
  With his Nancy on his knees, yeo ho!
  And his arm around her waist!

        -- W.S. Gilbert
           The Mikado

m.

To Whom It May Concern -- Adrian Mitchell

(Poem #28) To Whom It May Concern I was run over by the truth one day. Ever since the accident I've walked this way So stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam. Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain, Couldn't find myself so I went back to sleep again So fill my ears with silver Stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam. Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames. Made a marble phone book and I carved out all the names So coat my eyes with butter Fill my ears with silver Stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam. I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains. They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains So stuff my nose with garlic Coat my eyes with butter Fill my ears with silver Stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam. Where were you at the time of the crime? Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime So chain my tongue with whisky Stuff my nose with garlic Coat my eyes with butter Fill my ears with silver Stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam. You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out, You take the human being and you twist it all about So scrub my skin with women Chain my tongue with whisky Stuff my nose with garlic Coat my eyes with butter Fill my ears with silver Stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam. -- Adrian Mitchell

I really have nothing to add today: this poem communicates its message
more effectively than any commentary could ever hope to do. So I'll
leave you with a

Biographical Note:

Adrian Mitchell was born in 1932 and educated at Oxford. After coming
down in 1955 he worked for some years on the staff of the Oxford Mail,
and subsequently with the London Evening Standard. Mitchell's early
poetry showed a fondness for tight stanzas and a use of myth, but there
was always a kind of agonised human concern about his writing which
marked him off sharply from his more tight-lipped contemporaries. This
concern has developed over the years into a full-fledged political
commitment, and there is no other poet in England who has more steadily
focussed his aesthetic aims through his social ones. It would not be too
much to say that a poem such as 'To Whom It May Concern' altered the
conscience of English poetry, and for many younger writers Mitchell is
already the elder statesman of literary protest. He has made enemies
through this, and there are still critics who refuse to accept his
importance. But there are few poets now writing who can command a wider
general audience, and none who can swing such an audience more
effectively from public laughter to near tears.

    - George Macbeth

t.

Sea Fever -- John Masefield

Borrowing a leaf from Thomas, I'll run a set of three sea poems this week,
beginning with what is doubtless the most famous of them all ...

(Poem #27) Sea Fever I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must go down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. -- John Masefield

Another of those poems that everyone has probably read before, but no less
good for being famous. The simple but beautiful phrases need no commentary,
IMHO, so I'll merely note in passing that the first line is often written
without the 'go' - again, I merely picked the variant I liked better.

Biographical Note:

  MASEFIELD, John (1878-1967). Poet laureate of Great Britain from 1930
  until his death, John Masefield was only 22 years old when he wrote the
  simple and moving lines in his poem 'Sea Fever'. Masefield was born on
  June 1, 1878, in Ledbury, Herefordshire, England. After his father's death
  he was looked after by an uncle. Young Masefield wanted to be a merchant
  marine officer. At 13 he boarded the training ship Conway moored in the
  river Mersey. After two and a half years on the school ship he was
  apprenticed aboard a sailing ship that was bound for Chile by way of Cape
  Horn. In Chile he became ill and had to return to England by steamer. He
  left the sea and spent several years living in the United States, working
  chiefly in a carpet factory.
  [...]
  In 1897 he returned to England determined to succeed as a writer. He
  worked on newspapers at first. But he never forgot his days at sea. He
  returned to them again and again in his poems and stories. He wrote about
  the land too, about typically English things like fox hunting, racing, and
  outdoor life. In 1902 Masefield published his first volume of poems,
  'Salt-Water Ballads'. After that he wrote steadily poems, stories, and
  plays.
        -- Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia

Criticism:

The results of his wanderings showed in his early works, Salt-Water Ballads
(1902), Ballads (1903), frank and often crude poems of sailors written in
their own dialect, and A Mainsail Haul (1905), a collection of short
nautical stories. In these books Masefield possibly overemphasized passion
and brutality but, underneath the violence, he captured that highly-colored
realism which is the poetry of life.

It was not until he published The Everlasting Mercy (1911) that he became
famous. Followed quickly by those remarkable long narrative poems, The Widow
in the Bye Street (1912), Dauber (1912), and The Daffodil Fields (1913),
there is in all of these that peculiar blend of physical exulting and
spiritual exaltation that is so striking, and so typical of Masefield. Their
very rudeness is lifted to a plane of religious intensity. (See Preface.)
Pictorially, Masefield is even more forceful. The finest moment in The Widow
in the Bye Street is the portrayal of the mother alone in her cottage; the
public-house scene and the passage describing the birds following the plough
are the most intense touches in The Everlasting Mercy. Nothing more vigorous
and thrilling than the description of the storm at sea in Dauber[1] has
appeared in current literature.
        -- Untermeyer, Louis, ed. 1920. Modern British Poetry.

[1] Excerpt follows - it's too long a poem to run, but i'm glad of the
chance to quote a bit of it. Anyone interested can find the full text at
<[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/2012/poems/dauber00.html>

      How long the gale had blown he could not tell,
      Only the world had changed, his life had died.
      A moment now was everlasting hell.
      Nature an onslaught from the weather side,
      A withering rush of death, a frost that cried,
      Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail
      Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail....

      "Up!" yelled the Bosun; "up and clear the wreck!"
      The Dauber followed where he led; below
      He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck
      Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow.
      He saw the streamers of the rigging blow
      Straight out like pennons from the splintered mast,
      Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast.

      Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice,
      Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage,
      An utter bridle given to utter vice,
      Limitless power mad with endless rage
      Withering the soul; a minute seemed an age.
      He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail,
      Thinking that comfort was a fairy tale,
          -- Masefield, from 'Dauber'

martin

Jerusalem -- William Blake

this week's theme (sort of) - poems and rock music

(Poem #26) Jerusalem And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire! I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land. -- William Blake

from 'Jerusalem', 1804.

First, a Biographical Note, filched from the Wondrous World Wide Web
(yes, I shall be using a large number of Capital Letters in today's mail
:-)):

"I do not behold the outward creation... it is a hindrance and not
action." Thus William Blake--painter, engraver, and poet--explained why
his work was filled with religious visions rather than with subjects
from everyday life. Few people in his time realized that Blake expressed
these visions with a talent that approached genius. He lived in near
poverty and died unrecognized. Today, however, Blake is acclaimed one of
England's great figures of art and literature and one of the most
inspired and original painters of his time.

Blake was born on Nov. 28, 1757, in London. His father ran a hosiery
shop. William, the third of five children, went to school only long
enough to learn to read and write, and then he worked in the shop until
he was 14. When he saw the boy's talent for drawing, Blake's father
apprenticed him to an engraver.

At 25 Blake married Catherine Boucher. He taught her to read and write
and to help him in his work. They had no children. They worked together
to produce an edition of Blake's poems and drawings, called Songs of
Innocence. Blake engraved both words and pictures on copper printing
plates. Catherine made the printing impressions, hand-colored the
pictures, and bound the books. The books sold slowly, for a few
shillings each. Today a single copy is worth many thousands of dollars.

Blake's fame as an artist and engraver rests largely on a set of 21
copperplate etchings to illustrate the Book of Job in the Old Testament.
However, he did much work for which other artists and engravers got the
credit. Blake was a poor businessman, and he preferred to work on
subjects of his own choice rather than on those that publishers assigned
him.

A follower of Emanuel Swedenborg, who offered a gentle and mystic
interpretation of Christianity, Blake wrote poetry that largely reflects
Swedenborgian views. Songs of Innocence (1789) shows life as it seems to
innocent children. Songs of Experience (1794) tells of a mature person's
realization of pain and terror in the universe. This book contains his
famous `Tiger! Tiger! Burning Bright'. Milton (1804-08) and Jerusalem
(1804-20) are longer and more obscure works. Blake died on Aug. 12,
1827.

 - Mark Harden and Carol Gerten-Jackson, WebMuseum

Blake was a Certified Poetic Genius - equal parts visionary, mystic,
revolutionary, romantic, eccentric and lunatic. Early on in his career
as a printer, he rejected the methods and models of fashionable painting
and created, alongside many highly competent commissions (mainly
illustrations), an art of his own: fusing poetry, engraving and
book-binding into a single expression. Yet his wonderfully produced
books and prints (now greatly treasured as works of art), were always
merely vehicles for his intense, sometimes apocalyptic visions.

Through it all, though, his poems remained uncompromisingly 'true' in
thought and description - Blake could be bitterly critical of what he
saw as wrong with his beloved England. It was this harsh, almost
Puritanical criticism, coupled with his joyful and curiously childlike
visions of heaven, that inspired him to his greatest flights of lyricism

As usual, the Bard puts it best:

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
 Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
 More than cool reason ever comprehends.
 The lunatic, the lover and the poet
 Are of imagination all compact:
 One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
 That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
 Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
 The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
 And as imagination bodies forth
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
 Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
 A local habitation and a name."

from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.

(Yes, I know, I cheated, I've included two poems instead of one today
:-))

What I like best about Blake, though, is the effortless skill with which
his verse is written. He creates wonderful, resonant phrases of lasting
beauty (almost the whole of today's poem, as well as the more famous
'Tyger', are testimony to that) using simple, natural, flowing language;
at a time when Euphuism (the use (some would call it abuse) of classical
allusions in poetry) ran riot, Blake's verse came like a breath of fresh
air. Sadly, it was not appreciated at the time.

Oh, and finally, the rock music connection: I really got to know and
appreciate this poem only after hearing Emerson, Lake & Palmer's
brilliant rock interpretation of it. Rarely have words, meaning and
music come together in such perfect synergy. Listen to it.

thomas.

The Poet's Testament -- George Santayana

Guest poem sent in by Rajeev

(Poem #25) The Poet's Testament I give back to the earth what the earth gave, All to the furrow, none to the grave, The candle's out, the spirit's vigil spent; Sight may not follow where the vision went. I leave you but the sound of many a word In mocking echoes haply overheard, I sang to heaven. My exile made me free, from world to world, from all worlds carried me. Spared by the furies, for the Fates were kind, I paced the pillared cloisters of the mind; All times my present, everywhere my place, Nor fear, nor hope, nor envy saw my face. Blow what winds would, the ancient truth was mine, And friendship mellowed in the flush of wine, And heavenly laughter, shaking from its wings Atoms of light and tears for mortal things. To trembling harmonies of field and cloud, Of flesh and spirit was my worship vowed. Let form, let music, let all quickening air Fulfil in beauty my imperfect prayer. -- George Santayana

  George Santayana is considered a contemporary architect of philosophic
  thought. He balanced his many interests to make considerable contributions
  in literature and philosophy. He distinguished himself as a professor of
  philosophy at Harvard University, teaching philosophy as a way of life
  rather than just as an academic subject.

  He was a philosopher, poet, critic of culture and literature, and
  best-selling novelist. Although born in Spain, Santayana said that he must
  be considered an American author and philosopher. Educated in the United
  States, he taught at Harvard University for over twenty years. He retired
  from Harvard in order to be a full-time writer and philosopher (he had
  planned for early retirement since the mid-1890s, but Harvard's president
  prevailed upon him to stay two years longer than he planned). Although he
  was invited to hold positions at Oxford University, Harvard University,
  and Brown University, he chose to live the remaining forty years of his
  life in Europe traveling and writing, finally settling in Rome in a
  Catholic hospital-clinic in 1941 after an unsuccessful attempt to leave
  the country for Switzerland during World War II. He was then seventy-nine
  years old. These forty international years were remarkably productive in
  terms of his literary corpus, and his correspondence as a celebrated
  philosopher and writer was extensive. He is one of a few philosophers to
  appear on the cover of Time magazine (3 February 1936).

    - Introduction to the Letters of George Santayana

What attracted me to poetry was the music and the sense of rhythm of it all.
This was not always the case with most of the works that I read, where the
beat wasn't apparent the first time. This particular poem was a notable
exception - simple, no frills, and it goes straight to your heart. I like to
think of it as the reason why we read poetry....

Regards

Rajeev

PS : Incidentally, Will Durant's masterpiece - The Story of Philosophy -
has a chapter on Santayana and his philosophical work, for those
interested....