Iambic pentameter thread (it's rooted in the Shakespeare thread, he said)

[Wiploc]

600s:
Some Sort of Disturbance in Arabia

Lombards convert; Arianism ends.
The Catholics may have thought their troubles over.

Muhammad wrote a book, though, started Islam.
And Islam proved to have explosive growth:
The Arabs quickly roll across Armenia,
and Syria and Palestine and Egypt,
and next consume North Africa and Persia.

Constantinople’s fleet controls the water,
so upstart Muslims sink it with their own,
and then besiege Byzantium’s main city.
Is this to be the end of Christianity?
Must all of Europe go down to defeat?

It surely seems a miracle: Greek fire
burns Arab ships and finally stems the tide.

 

[Wiploc]

600s:
Some Sort of Disturbance in Arabia

Lombards convert; Arianism ends.
The Catholics may have thought their troubles over.

"Catholics" is wrong? They'd have been Greek Orthodox by then, right?

Maybe I'll change it to "Christian," if I can make the meter work.

 

[WAB]

600s:
Some Sort of Disturbance in Arabia

Lombards convert; Arianism ends.
The Catholics may have thought their troubles over.

Muhammad wrote a book, though, started Islam.
And Islam proved to have explosive growth:
The Arabs quickly roll across Armenia,
and Syria and Palestine and Egypt,
and next consume North Africa and Persia.

Constantinople’s fleet controls the water,
so upstart Muslims sink it with their own,
and then besiege Byzantium’s main city.
Is this to be the end of Christianity?
Must all of Europe go down to defeat?

It surely seems a miracle: Greek fire
burns Arab ships and finally stems the tide.

Wiploc, if I may, a wee suggestion:

Might it not be better to keep the present tense throughout the pieces?

Great stuff, though.

 

[Wiploc]

Wiploc, if I may, a wee suggestion:

Might it not be better to keep the present tense throughout the pieces?

Great stuff, though.

Good catch! Thank you.

Let's try this:

Lombards convert; Arianism ends;
The Christian church may think its troubles over.

Muhammad writes a book, though, starting Islam.
And Islam proves to have explosive growth:
The Arabs quickly roll across Armenia,
and Syria and Palestine and Egypt,
and next consume North Africa and Persia.

Constantinople’s fleet controls the water,
so upstart Muslims sink it with their own,
and then besiege Byzantium’s main city.
Is this to be the end of Christianity?
Must all of Europe go down to defeat?

It surely seems a miracle: Greek fire
burns Arab ships and finally stems the tide.

 

[Wiploc]

Here's a Wikipedia quote from my notes on the 700s:

The 8th century is the period from 701 through 800 in accordance with the Julian Calendar. The coast of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula quickly came under Islamic Arab domination. The westward expansion of the Umayyad Empire was famously halted at the Siege of Constantinople by the Byzantine Empire and the Battle of Tours by the Franks. The tide of Arab conquest came to an end in the middle of the 8th century.^[1]

There was a siege of Constantinople involving Greek fire in the 600s, so that part is okay. But I may have the Muslim conquest of North Africa and Spain in the wrong century.

I'll let that slide for now, aside from leaving myself this note. I'll have lots of double-checking to do in the next draft.

ETA:

Also, Arianism isn't really ended yet. Maybe we only have tribes, as opposed to states that are officially Arian?

 

[WAB]

Whilst ye Chair is working on their project, I will intersperse some meaty beaty big and bouncy selections from epic and/or long poems written in English, from let us say Chaucer, who began a rudimentary five-footed line and was also a brilliant poet, all the way up through the present.

If that is alright with Wiploc, of course, since I have abdicated said chair unto him or her referred to in prior posts.

(Asked [grovelingly] Wiploc be the OP!)

While this may sound like a daunting task, I will keep my selections to a minimum of poets who wrote/write in traditional forms, since the original intent of the thread was to focus on metrical verse, and specifically iambic pentameter. I will confess that my real and very sneaky and tricksy reason for doing this was to see who may be gadding about TFT who appear to grasp the technicals of metrical poetry, in English especially; and more especially, to get an idea of which of these posters has an ear for the sound of it; and specifically, who is able to see and hear why Shakespeare (which we will collectively agree applies to the author(s) of the works attributed to that famous name) stands head and shoulders above any and all other authors and poets who have written in English.

I submit, it is my opinion (not a fact) that Shakespeare's unusual worldwide fame rests not necessarily in his skills as an author, a dramatist, and a person many believe to have had a preternatural understanding of human emotions, motives, and behavior; but rather, that it rests, primarily, on the nearly objective fact that he was the greatest and most skilled poet the English language has yet produced.

Said selections will begin in a subsequent post. Hopefully soon.

 

[Wiploc]

The chair says: Have at it.

 

[Wiploc]

700s:
Big Chuck Rules

The Arabs sweep across North Africa.
Arabs and Berbers take Iberia.
Their run was great, but Visigoths are done.

A Muslim army charges into France,
but falls before the hammer: Charles Martel.

Here’s Beowulf—the poem, not the person.
At Lindisfarne begins the age of viking.
Constantinople stands another siege.
Iconoclasm now is all the rage.
Bede writes a venerated history book.

Now Carl der Gross is king of Franks and Lombards.
You likely think of him as Charlemagne.
Big Chuck keeps taking parts of central Europe.
He likes to make new Christians by the sword.

A revolution technological
or sartorial? Heavy mould-board plows
are pulled by horses wearing shoes and collars.

 

[WAB]

John Milton, ye 2nd Chaire in Englishe

From Paradise Lost, by John Milton (published in 1667)

[bear in mind, the poet was completely blind by the time of composition. The poem was dictated to his six daughters, revised and touched-up as he went along.] - WAB

Copied from Project Gutenberg (public domain) :

from Transcriber's Notes:

The original spelling, capitalisation and punctuation have been retained as far as possible. Characters not in the ANSI standard set have been replaced by their nearest equivalent. The AE & OE digraphs have been transcribed as two letters...No italics have been retained.



BOOK V.

THE ARGUMENT.

Morning approach't, Eve relates to Adam her troublesome dream: he likes it not, yet comforts her: They come forth to thir day labours: Their Morning Hymn at the Door of their Bower. God to render Man inexcusable sends Raphael to admonish him of his obedience, of his free estate, of his enemy near at hand; who he is, and why his enemy, and whatever else may avail Adam to know. Raphael comes down to Paradise; his appearance describ'd, his coming discern'd by Adam afar off sitting at the door of his Bower; he goes out to meet him, brings him to his lodge, entertains him with the choycest fruits of Paradise got together by Eve; their discourse at Table: Raphael performs his message, minds Adam of his state and of his enemy; relates at Adams request who that enemy is, and how he came to be so, beginning with his first revolt in Heaven and the occasion thereof; how he drew his Legions after him to the parts of the North, and there incited them to rebel with him, perswading all but only Abdiel a Seraph, who in Argument diswades and opposes him, then forsakes him.


Now Morn her rosie steps in th' Eastern Clime
Advancing, sow'd the Earth with Orient Pearle,
When Adam wak't, so customd, for his sleep
Was Aerie light, from pure digestion bred,
And temperat vapors bland, which th' only sound
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan,
Lightly dispers'd, and the shrill Matin Song
Of Birds on every bough; so much the more
His wonder was to find unwak'nd Eve
With Tresses discompos'd, and glowing Cheek, 10
As through unquiet rest: he on his side
Leaning half-rais'd, with looks of cordial Love
Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld
Beautie, which whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar Graces; then with voice
Milde, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,
Her hand soft touching, whisperd thus. Awake
My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found,
Heav'ns last best gift, my ever new delight,
Awake, the morning shines, and the fresh field 20
Calls us, we lose the prime, to mark how spring
Our tended Plants, how blows the Citron Grove,
What drops the Myrrhe, & what the balmie Reed,
How Nature paints her colours, how the Bee
Sits on the Bloom extracting liquid sweet.
Such whispering wak'd her, but with startl'd eye
On Adam, whom imbracing, thus she spake.
O Sole in whom my thoughts find all repose,
My Glorie, my Perfection, glad I see
Thy face, and Morn return'd, for I this Night, 30
Such night till this I never pass'd, have dream'd,
If dream'd, not as I oft am wont, of thee,
Works of day pass't, or morrows next designe,
But of offence and trouble, which my mind
Knew never till this irksom night; methought
Close at mine ear one call'd me forth to walk
With gentle voice, I thought it thine; it said,
Why sleepst thou Eve? now is the pleasant time,
The cool, the silent, save where silence yields
To the night-warbling Bird, that now awake 40
Tunes sweetest his love-labor'd song; now reignes
Full Orb'd the Moon, and with more pleasing light
Shadowie sets off the face of things; in vain,
If none regard; Heav'n wakes with all his eyes,
Whom to behold but thee, Natures desire,
In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment
Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.
I rose as at thy call, but found thee not;
To find thee I directed then my walk;
And on, methought, alone I pass'd through ways 50
That brought me on a sudden to the Tree
Of interdicted Knowledge: fair it seem'd,
Much fairer to my Fancie then by day:
And as I wondring lookt, beside it stood
One shap'd and wing'd like one of those from Heav'n
By us oft seen; his dewie locks distill'd
Ambrosia; on that Tree he also gaz'd;
And O fair Plant, said he, with fruit surcharg'd,
Deigns none to ease thy load and taste thy sweet,
Nor God, nor Man; is Knowledge so despis'd? 60
Or envie, or what reserve forbids to taste?
Forbid who will, none shall from me withhold
Longer thy offerd good, why else set here?
This said he paus'd not, but with ventrous Arme
He pluckt, he tasted; mee damp horror chil'd
At such bold words voucht with a deed so bold:
But he thus overjoy'd, O Fruit Divine,
Sweet of thy self, but much more sweet thus cropt,
Forbidd'n here, it seems, as onely fit
For Gods, yet able to make Gods of Men: 70
And why not Gods of Men, since good, the more
Communicated, more abundant growes,
The Author not impair'd, but honourd more?
Here, happie Creature, fair Angelic Eve,
Partake thou also; happie though thou art,
Happier thou mayst be, worthier canst not be:
Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods
Thy self a Goddess, not to Earth confind,
But somtimes in the Air, as wee, somtimes
Ascend to Heav'n, by merit thine, and see 80
What life the Gods live there, and such live thou.



https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1745/1745-h/1745-h.htm#link2H_4_0011

 

[WAB]

John Keats, ye 3rd Chairre in Englishe (in my opinion)

from Hyperion (a fragment, composed 1818-1819 ; published 1820)

Keats was 25 at his death from tuberculosis. Many, including Byron and Shelley, consider the two Hyperion fragments (the other was titled, The Fall of Hyperion), as the finest extant examples of blank verse by any poet in English of the same years. I agree with that. Keats is my 'favorite' poet. I love him and his work more than any other poet's. - WAB



Although he is now seen as part of the British Romantic literary tradition, in his own lifetime Keats would not have been associated with other major Romantic poets, and he himself was often uneasy among them. Outside his friend Leigh Hunt‘s circle of liberal intellectuals, the generally conservative reviewers of the day attacked his work as mawkish and bad-mannered, as the work of an upstart “vulgar Cockney poetaster” (John Gibson Lockhart), and as consisting of “the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language” (John Wilson Croker). Although Keats had a liberal education in the boy’s academy at Enfield and trained at Guy’s Hospital to become a surgeon, he had no formal literary education. - [from The Poetry Foundation website]



***
As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
Save from one gradual solitary gust
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave;
So came these words and went; the while in tears
She touch'd her fair large forehead to the ground,
Just where her falling hair might be outspread
A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet.
One moon, with alteration slow, had shed
Her silver seasons four upon the night,
And still these two were postured motionless,
Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern;
The frozen God still couchant on the earth,
And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet:
Until at length old Saturn lifted up
His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone,
And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,
And that fair kneeling Goddess; and then spake,
As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard
Shook horrid with such aspen-malady:
"O tender spouse of gold Hyperion,
Thea, I feel thee ere I see thy face;
Look up, and let me see our doom in it;
Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape
Is Saturn's; tell me, if thou hear'st the voice
Of Saturn; tell me, if this wrinkling brow,
Naked and bare of its great diadem,
Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power
To make me desolate? whence came the strength?
How was it nurtur'd to such bursting forth,
While Fate seem'd strangled in my nervous grasp?
But it is so, and I am smother'd up,
And buried from all godlike exercise
Of influence benign on planets pale,
Of admonitions to the winds and seas,
Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting,
And all those acts which Deity supreme
Doth ease its heart of love in.—I am gone
Away from my own bosom: I have left
My strong identity, my real self,
Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit
Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search!
Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round
Upon all space: space starr'd, and lorn of light;
Space region'd with life-air; and barren void;
Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.—
Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest
A certain shape or shadow, making way
With wings or chariot fierce to repossess
A heaven he lost erewhile: it must—it must
Be of ripe progress—Saturn must be King.
Yes, there must be a golden victory;
There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpets blown
Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival
Upon the gold clouds metropolitan,
Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir
Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be
Beautiful things made new, for the surprise
Of the sky-children; I will give command:
Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?"

This passion lifted him upon his feet,
And made his hands to struggle in the air,
His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat,
His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease.
He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep;
A little time, and then again he snatch'd
Utterance thus.—"But cannot I create?
Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth
Another world, another universe,
To overbear and crumble this to nought?
Where is another chaos? Where?"—



https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-keats


Keats' work should constitute a reminder to people that genius does not care about class (which doesn't really exist anyway save as a convenient term), or education. Also as proof that one does not have to experience something in order to write about it powerfully. The potential and power of the imagination is not fully comprehended by science, yet; or so I believe. - WAB

 

[Wiploc]

Gotta problem in the 800s. Throwing it open for ideas.

Al-Khwarizmi invents the algebra.
and there was much rejoicing. Yaaay.

The second line has only four feet.

I don't know how to preserve the Python allusion/quotation and still add another foot.

 

[WAB]

Gotta problem in the 800s. Throwing it open for ideas.

Al-Khwarizmi invents the algebra.
and there was much rejoicing. Yaaay.

The second line has only four feet.

I don't know how to preserve the Python allusion/quotation and still add another foot.

How about:

Al-Khwarizmi invents the algebra.
Cut to: and there was much rejoicing. Yaaay.


Gives you a lengthier pause after 'algebra', since the following line begins with a stress; also gives you a sizable pause after the colon in the 2nd line. Plus it's more informative, telling the reader who might not be familiar with Python (Kiiiilllll the heretic!!!) that it's an allusion.

AND, it's still funny, in my opinion.

 

[Copernicus]

Although I did take four years of Latin in high school, that was over half a century ago. So I haven't had to scan Latin verse for a very long time, but I did a lot of that in high school. And I didn't really understand why back then, but it was easy, and I got high marks. Nobody really knows how Classical Latin was pronounced, but all languages are rhythmic. Poetry takes advantage of this to create rhythmic patterns, i.e. poetic meter. The basic unit of rhythm in a language is called a prosodic "foot".

The English language is called a stress-timed language, because speakers take the same amount of time to pronounce the syllables between stress peaks. That is, one, two, or three syllables all take the same amount of time to pronounce, if there is only one stress peak. (Stress itself is perceived as loudness, but the actual phonetics is complicated.) French and many other Romance languages tend to be syllable-timed. That means that every syllable is pronounced with equal length no matter whether it is stressed or not. When I studied the Breton language, which is spoken in a section of northwest France, I learned that it, like English, was stress-timed. So one could tell the difference between Breton-dominant and French-dominant speakers of Breton from the rhythm of their pronunciation.

Now Latin is a bit more complicated, because Classical Latin appears to have been mora-timed, like Sanskrit and some other older Indo-European languages. The "mora" is a somewhat abstract concept in that it refers to a difference between a long syllable and a short syllable. A short syllable is one mora in length, and a long syllable is two moras (aka morae) in length. So, one long syllable takes the same amount of time as two short syllables to pronounce. The core of a syllable is a vowel, and Latin made a strong distinction between long and short vowels. But the mora "weight" of a syllable was complicated by the adjacency of consonants, so you can't just go by vowel length. You have to look at syllables and pay attention to syllable boundaries in order to scan a line of Latin poetry. I am not sure how Vernacular Latin was spoken during the time of Cicero, but it may no longer have used mora-timing. So there was allegedly quite a difference between the pronunciation of Latin spoken by orators and that spoken by people on the street. Romance languages lost distinctive vowel length as they evolved gradually into syllable-timed languages.

 

[Wiploc]

How about:

Al-Khwarizmi invents the algebra.
Cut to: and there was much rejoicing. Yaaay.


Gives you a lengthier pause after 'algebra', since the following line begins with a stress; also gives you a sizable pause after the colon in the 2nd line. Plus it's more informative, telling the reader who might not be familiar with Python (Kiiiilllll the heretic!!!) that it's an allusion.

AND, it's still funny, in my opinion.

I like it. Thank you.

I definitely need the colon, or some other pause. The way I read it, "and there was much rejoicing," starts with a stress. (DUM de de DUM, as opposed to de DUM de DUM, which is only legal (or at least only "regular") after a caesura (pause).)

 

[WAB]

Thanks a great deal, Copernicus, for visiting the thread. Your comments are appreciated!

Chair,

Yes, I hear 'and' as stressed also.

 

[Tharmas]

Although I did take four years of Latin in high school, that was over half a century ago. So I haven't had to scan Latin verse for a very long time, but I did a lot of that in high school. And I didn't really understand why back then, but it was easy, and I got high marks. Nobody really knows how Classical Latin was pronounced, but all languages are rhythmic. Poetry takes advantage of this to create rhythmic patterns, i.e. poetic meter. The basic unit of rhythm in a language is called a prosodic "foot".

The English language is called a stress-timed language, because speakers take the same amount of time to pronounce the syllables between stress peaks. That is, one, two, or three syllables all take the same amount of time to pronounce, if there is only one stress peak. (Stress itself is perceived as loudness, but the actual phonetics is complicated.) French and many other Romance languages tend to be syllable-timed. That means that every syllable is pronounced with equal length no matter whether it is stressed or not. When I studied the Breton language, which is spoken in a section of northwest France, I learned that it, like English, was stress-timed. So one could tell the difference between Breton-dominant and French-dominant speakers of Breton from the rhythm of their pronunciation.

Now Latin is a bit more complicated, because Classical Latin appears to have been mora-timed, like Sanskrit and some other older Indo-European languages. The "mora" is a somewhat abstract concept in that it refers to a difference between a long syllable and a short syllable. A short syllable is one mora in length, and a long syllable is two moras (aka morae) in length. So, one long syllable takes the same amount of time as two short syllables to pronounce. The core of a syllable is a vowel, and Latin made a strong distinction between long and short vowels. But the mora "weight" of a syllable was complicated by the adjacency of consonants, so you can't just go by vowel length. You have to look at syllables and pay attention to syllable boundaries in order to scan a line of Latin poetry. I am not sure how Vernacular Latin was spoken during the time of Cicero, but it may no longer have used mora-timing. So there was allegedly quite a difference between the pronunciation of Latin spoken by orators and that spoken by people on the street. Romance languages lost distinctive vowel length as they evolved gradually into syllable-timed languages.

Great explanation, Copernicus. You've explained a lot to me that I didn't understand. My understanding is that in English versification, Latin-like "timed" verse is called "quantitative." A few poets, notably Sir Philip Sidney and 350 years later, Ezra Pound, have experimented with quantitative verse in English, but without great success. Here is Pound's Canto I, which I believe is supposed to be quantitative, but which reads to me as your basic English accented meter. But here is an interesting essay on the subject, for those who are really interested (I'm looking at you, WAB).

 

[WAB]

Will read it toot sweet and post haste, Tharmas.

Oh, and thanks for the Pound. I was going to post a sonnet of his called, A Virginal, as an example of IP as well as an example of just how beautiful English can be, in the right hands.

Will get to it after I get some Tennyson and Browning up, later on today.

 

[WAB]

The 4th Chair in English, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Written 1833 (the poet was 23 or 24 yrs old); published 1842


Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

[WAB]

A Virginal

No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,
For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;
Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly
And left me cloaked as with a gauze of æther;
As with sweet leaves; as with subtle clearness.
Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness
To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.
No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,
Soft as spring wind that’s come from birchen bowers.
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winter’s wound with her sleight hand she staunches,
Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:
As white their bark, so white this lady’s hours.


***


A snippet from Portrait d'une Femme


Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own.
Yet this is you.

 

[Tharmas]

Will read it toot sweet and post haste, Tharmas.

Oh, and thanks for the Pound. I was going to post a sonnet of his called, A Virginal, as an example of IP as well as an example of just how beautiful English can be, in the right hands.

Will get to it after I get some Tennyson and Browning up, later on today.

No hurry on the essay. It's a little bit quirky - one poet's encounter with other poets and how he tries to learn what they're doing and how they do it. He develops his own system of scansion. I liked the essay because he mentions poets who were very instrumental to me when I was learning poetry: Pound, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and Allen Ginsberg, among others. I also learned a lot from D.H. Lawrence, but his prose, not his poetry, which I find indifferent. I believe it was The Rainbow that I started reading and had to stop, after the first two paragraphs, and re-read them over several times. I wanted to know how he was doing what he was doing.

As to Pound, I find a lot of his earlier (pre Cantos) poetry to be among the most beautifully crafted objects in the English language.