I am Raftery the poet -- Anthony Raftery

This week's theme - 'Songs of Myself', so to speak.

(Poem #171) I am Raftery the poet I am Raftery the poet. Full of hope and love. My eyes without sight, My mind without torment. Going west on my journey By the light of my heart, Tired and weary To the end of the road. Behold me now With my back to the wall. Playing music To empty pockets. -- Anthony Raftery

Early 19th century.
Translated by James Stephens.

I've always been fascinated by the bardic tradition and, indeed, by oral
poetry in general [1]. Perhaps it's because wandering poets (minstrels,
troubadours, jongleurs, call them what you will) tend to be more in
touch with the common people, with the hustle and bustle of real life;
their poetry has an earthiness rooted in the dirt and grime and yes,
beauty of the everyday [2]. Which is not to say that they're incapable
of finer emotions or philosophical insight; it's just that they tend to
experience Life with a greater passion than most of us [3], and that
passion is often translated into words of wonderful poignancy.

thomas.

[1] A fascination Martin shares... you do remember what our little
egroup is called, don't you?
    A wandering minstrel I
    A thing of shreds and patches
    Of ballads, songs and snatches
    And dreamy lullaby
                -- from The Mikado, W. S. Gilbert.
[2] It's interesting to contrast the rough beauty of Raftery's verse
with the oh-so-elegant fluff that was being produced by the Augustan
poets in England at approximately the same time. No prizes for guessing
which I prefer :-)
[3] probably why they became poets in the first place.

[Followup]

The most moving portrayal of spontaneous minstrelsy I've ever come
across is the description of the Singers, in Samuel R. Delany's
breathtakingly brilliant short story 'Time Considered as a Helix of
Semi-Precious Stones'. Read it.

[Biography]

Anthony Raftery,1779 - 1835, the poet, was, we are told, born in Cill
Liadain (Killeadan), near Kiltimagh County, Mayo, as the son of a weaver
from County Sligo. Blinded by smallpox in childhood and illiterate, he
was helped by his father's employer, Frank Taaffe, for whom he was a
household entertainer, until they fell out, allegedly because he killed
a favourite horse. Raftery then joined the thousands of homeless people,
who roamed Ireland to live off a population  not much better off than
himself.

    Mise Raiftearai an file,
    Lan dochas 's gra,
    Le suile gan solas,
    Le ciunas gan cra,
    Feach anois me
    Is mo chul le balla
    Ag seimn ceoil
    Do phocai folamh.

[I've omitted the diacritical marks for the benefit of those of you
whose mailers don't support extended ASCII; the curious can view the
poem in its 'true' form at the website listed below - t.]

This poem tells us how he lived. `I am Raftery,the poet, full of hope
and love; with eyes without light, with gentleness without misery, Look
at me now and  my back to the wall, playing music to empty pockets'.
However, he must have been better off than most. Because of his talents
as a poet and musician he was welcomed in many houses. He spent most of
his adult life in `Achréidh na Gaillimhe'(the rich farmland of East
Galway), where the `strong farmers' were his patrons. A poet of the
people, his work deals with events of the time and reflect the views of
the people of the area. Loud in his praise of those who helped him, his
sharp tongue was used against those who incurred his wrath.

    -- from http://homepage.tinet.ie/~foregan/adc/raftery.html

[Links]

A more detailed biography (and far more interesting) essay on Raftery
can be found at [broken link] http://www.galwayonline.ie/history/history2/rafter.htm

For an alternative theory on the authorship of today's poem, check out
[broken link] http://hep.uchicago.edu/~oser/raftery.html

And for an essay on Gaelic literature in general, visit
http://infoplease.lycos.com/ce5/CE019894.html

[Random Thought]

I can't help but wonder how much Heinlein was influenced by the career
(and character) of Raftery while creating the immortal Rhysling. I'll
run 'The Green Hills of Earth' some day; you can judge for yourself.

t.

The Need of Being Versed in Country Things -- Robert Frost

Guest poem sent in by Deepak Singh

My first real attempt at something like this so hopefully is isn't too bad.

(Poem #170) The Need of Being Versed in Country Things The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, Like a pistil after the petals go. The barn opposed across the way, That would have joined the house in flame Had it been the will of the wind, was left To bear forsaken the place's name. No more it opened with all one end For teams that came by the stony road To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs And brush the mow with the summer load. The birds that came to it through the air At broken windows flew out and in, Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh From too much dwelling on what has been. Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf, And the aged elm, though touched with fire; And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm: And the fence post carried a strand of wire. For them there was really nothing sad. But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept, One had to be versed in country things Not to believe the phoebes wept. -- Robert Frost

Commentary and Remarks:

Robert Frost (1874-1963) does not need much of an introduction.  A born and
bred New Englander he won the Pulitzer 4 times and was the first poet to
ever read poetry at a presidential inauguration (JFK's). It was during his
stay in England (1912-1915) that his career as a poet really took off.
There he met and was influenced by such contemporary British poets as Edward
Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves.  Early help in promoting his
poetry came from Ezra Pounds.

A lot of his work is principally associated with New England.  He was a
poet of traditional verse forms whose work went far beyond regionalism.
His poems were often dark and searching, his work infused with layers of
ambiguity and irony.  Someone told me this story about his meeting with
Robert Frost while he was in high school

  "I had an opportunity to spend an afternoon with Robert Frost, who was a
  warm yet sarcastic fellow. I told him thatI had spent two weeks in my
  class studying "Stopping by the woods.." and I told him the complex
  interpretation of the poem that my professor had presented. I asked him if
  it was really possible he had been thinking along those lines when he
  wrote it. He smiled and said that he had read about 8 different and
  mutually exclusive interpretations of that poem, and he enjoyed all of
  them, but asked me what mine was. I gave him something very simple, and he
  said he liked it as much as the others. What he was basically saying, I
  think is that what he was thinking when he wrote the poem will remain with
  him and perhaps even be obscure to him, and how we interpret it is up to
  us. There is no correct answer"

That does sum up Frost very well for me.  The poem in the above story was
not  "The Need ..." but a lot of Frost's poetry can be viewed from a similar
perspective.

Frost was a farmer for many years and a lot of his poetry deals with rural
New England.  "The need for ... " in my opinion at least is a fairly simple
poem and that was one of Frosts strengths; he could show the hidden drama in
ordinary things.  Using New Hampshire as a backdrop, this poem goes a long
way into understanding life and death.  How life always "goes on" in the
country.  The scene is static yet Frost makes it tell a story, a simple yet
heartfelt one.

--
Deepak

She Walks in Beauty -- George Gordon, Lord Byron

(Poem #169) She Walks in Beauty She walks in beauty like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to the tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One ray the more, one shade the less Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress Or softly lightens o'er her face, Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling place. And on that cheek and o'er that brow So soft, so calm yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow But tell of days in goodness spent A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent. -- George Gordon, Lord Byron

Today's poem embodies both a lot of what I like, and a lot of what I dislike
about Byron. It starts off brilliantly; the first four lines are beautifully
phrased, and the opening couplet in particular has ingrained itself in the
collective consciousness, on a par with other famous openings like 'How do I
love thee? let me count the ways' and 'All the world's a stage'. Also in
evidence is the effortlessly perfect scansion that characterizes Byron's
work (see, especially, Don Juan[1], his undisputed masterpiece)

However, the latter two verses lose that quality of delicate beauty, and
degenerate into a somewhat lifeless portrayal of a somewhat insipid set of
traits. To be perfectly fair to Byron, it may just be that the poem has not
aged well, but phrases like 'how pure, how dear' tend to jar, and the whole
last verse has a 'pious' quality that borders on affectation.

[1] <http://www.geocities.com/~bblair/donjuan.htm>; dip into it at random to
get the feel of the verse

m.

Note:

  In 1815, Byron wrote a series of songs to be set to adaptations of
  traditional Jewish tunes by Isaac Nathan. She Walks in Beauty is the
  first of those songs.

  The woman described is the cousin of Byron's wife, Mrs. Robert John
  Wilmot. When Byron first saw her, she was wearing a black mourning gown
  with spangles.
        -- Bob Blair

Biography:

  Byron, George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron

   b. Jan. 22, 1788, London, Eng.
   d. April 19, 1824, Missolonghi, Greece

  byname LORD BYRON, English Romantic poet and satirist whose poetry and
  personality captured the imagination of Europe. Renowned as the "gloomy
  egoist" of his autobiographical poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18)
  in the 19th century, he is now more generally esteemed for the satiric
  realism of Don Juan (1819-24).

        -- EB

  Lord Byron (1788-1824), as his title would indicate, was born into an
  aristocratic English family; even so, he led the life of a vagabond; a
  "haughty and aristocratic genius" subject only to his own ruling passions.
  He was born with a malformation of one foot, which left him with a life
  long limp; he grew up, however, to be a dark, handsome man; the women
  liked Byron and he liked women; his sexual exploits are legend. Byron
  spent most of his adult life on the continent, making his first trip in
  1809 with his school chum, John Hobhouse. Hobhouse returned to England
  leaving Bryon to go on to Greece by himself. During this eastern trip
  Bryon wrote the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," which tells the story
  of his tour. On his return to England he arranged for its publication and
  it "took the town by storm; seven editions were sold in a month." Byron
  tried to settle down into a regular aristocratic life, even to the point
  of getting himself married (it lasted but a few months); but none of it
  worked very well for Byron. By 1821, Byron was permanently living in Italy
  where he is part of a romantic literary circle, a circle which includes
  the Hunts; the Shelleys; and, of course, Trelawney. Byron was to get
  himself caught up with the war between the Greeks and the Turks, and, in
  1824, Byron embarked for Greece. Shortly, thereafter, at the age of 36,
  though likely not seeing any action, Byron dies at Missolonghi, Greece.

        -- Blupete (<www.blupete.com>)

  There's an extensive Byron site at
    <[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9194/byron/bycover.html>

A Dead Mole -- Andrew Young

(Poem #168) A Dead Mole Strong-shouldered mole, That so much lived below the ground, Dug, fought and loved, hunted and fed, For you to raise a mound Was as for us to make a hole; What wonder now that being dead Your body lies here stout and square Buried within the blue vault of the air? -- Andrew Young

1939.

You know how it is when you're looking at one of those trick photos
which have two interpretations (like the silhouetted profiles / flower
vase thingy), and suddenly the image resolves itself into a whole new
picture? Well, sometimes poetry is like that. Sometimes (not often, but
sometimes) poems have a way of jolting the reader into a whole new
appreciation of reality - seeing the extraordinary in the mundane,
reversing commonly held perceptions, finding new truths in unlikely
places...

I love the inversion of perspective in the last line of today's poem.
Suddenly, what seemed to be an ordinary-enough poem about an
ordinary-enough event is given the force of a revelation. Powerful, and
thought-provoking.

thomas.

[Followup / Links]

For another take on how poets bring out the unfamiliar in the everyday,
read the Martian poetry of Craig Raine (and Vikram Doctor's excellent
commentary on it) at poem #131

All our previous poems can also be read on the Web, at
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/

[Biography]

A completely anonymous poet... several web-searches revealed no
background information about Andrew Young, apart from the fact that he
was presumably alive in 1939, when this poem was written. I'd appreciate
mail from anyone who knows who the guy is/was.

Pangur Ban -- Anonymous

Proxying for DeMello...

(Poem #167) Pangur Ban I and Pangur Ban my cat, 'Tis a like task we are at: Hunting mice is his delight, Hunting words I sit all night. Better far than praise of men 'Tis to sit with book and pen; Pangur bears me no ill-will, He too plies his simple skill. 'Tis a merry task to see At our tasks how glad are we, When at home we sit and find Entertainment to our mind. Oftentimes a mouse will stray In the hero Pangur's way; Oftentimes my keen thought set Takes a meaning in its net. 'Gainst the wall he sets his eye Full and fierce and sharp and sly; 'Gainst the wall of knowledge I All my little wisdom try. When a mouse darts from its den, O how glad is Pangur then! O what gladness do I prove When I solve the doubts I love! So in peace our task we ply, Pangur Ban, my cat, and I; In our arts we find our bliss, I have mine and he has his. Practice every day has made Pangur perfect in his trade; I get wisdom day and night Turning darkness into light. -- Anonymous

Written by a student of the monastery of Carinthia on a copy of St
Paul's Epistles.
Translated by Robin Flower.

I guess I like this poem more for the context than for the words
themselves... somehow, the image of the apprentice monk, toiling over
his precious manuscripts, while Europe slept through the Dark Ages,
seems particularly poignant. Nothing much more to say.

thomas.

PS. You can find the original Irish text of this poem (and a nice
commentary on the intricacies of translation) at
http://www.ceantar.org/pangur.html

PPS. Our dearly-beloved Martin will be back on Saturday... apparently
there's been a network outage of some sort at Brookhaven [1], so he's
temporarily offline.

[1] Scary thought, innit?