#1. Peter Quince at the Clavier
By Wallace Stevens
I
Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the selfsame sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,
Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna:
Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt
The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.
II
In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.
Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.
She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.
A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned—
A cymbal crashed,
And roaring horns.
III
Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.
They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side;
And as they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.
Anon, their lamps’ uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.
And then, the simpering Byzantines
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.
IV
Beauty is momentary in the mind—
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body’s beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden’s choral.
Susanna’s music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death’s ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.
#2. Home
By Edgar Guest
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,
A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam
Afore ye really ’preciate the things ye lef’ behind,
An’ hunger fer ’em somehow, with ’em allus on yer mind.
It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be,
How much yer chairs an’ tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.
Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it’s home there’s got t’ be a heap o’ livin’ in it;
Within the walls there’s got t’ be some babies born, and then
Right there ye’ve got t’ bring ‘em up t’ women good, an’ men;
And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn’t part
With anything they ever used—they’ve grown into yer heart:
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore
Ye hoard; an’ if ye could ye’d keep the thumbmarks on the door.
Ye’ve got t’ weep t’ make it home, ye’ve got t’ sit an’ sigh
An’ watch beside a loved one’s bed, an’ know that Death is nigh;|
An’ in the stillness o’ the night t’ see Death’s angel come,
An’ close the eyes o’ her that smiled, an’ leave her sweet voice dumb.
Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an’ when yer tears are dried,
Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an’ sanctified;
An’ tuggin’ at ye always are the pleasant memories
O’ her that was an’ is no more—ye can’t escape from these.
Ye’ve got t’ sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,
An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ’em each day;
Even the roses ’round the porch must blossom year by year
Afore they ’come a part o’ ye, suggestin’ someone dear
Who used t’ love ’em long ago, an’ trained ’em jes’ t’ run
The way they do, so’s they would get the early mornin’ sun;
Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.
Buraq says
Wallace Stevens – classy, erudite, replete with fidelity to feeling (like having ‘perfect pitch’), thoroughly explores the idea of the poem, possesses technical accuracy of language.
Edgar Guest – an inverted snob who makes a point of using the ‘daily tongue’, but fails to make any other point! An eye for the size of his urban audience and its ability to leverage his bank balance, a professional ‘poet’ – a traduced O Henry, kinda.
Stevens writes poetry, and ironically, a Guest writes about ‘Home’!
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Of course, unlike Edgar Guest, Wallace Stevens was earning the equivalent of $350,000 per annum as an insurance executive with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company.
somehistory says
“Home”
By Edgar Guest is very nice.
I don’t care to read about someone watching a woman bathe.
Phil Copson says
For the first time, I’m going to disagree with Hugh – the first poem is really no better than the second: Both are very self-consciously striving for an effect and – having aimed higher – Wallace Stevens misses by a bigger margin.
(In fact – the more I read it – the worse it gets!
“She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.
Why would “a breath upon her hand” “mute the night”? Stevens even uses the word “Anon” and finds Death “ironic”. Finding everything to be “ironic” is the mark of a a sixteen-year old would-be “intellectual” – in fact the poem reads very much like the sort of thing that I imagine “E.J.Thribb” (aged sixteen and three-quarters) would write if challenged to come up with a “proper” poem.
“So farewell then, Hugh Fitzgerald
Comparitor of poems past and present!
You look back through the Mask of Time
While I surmount it’s Crescent!
This then is my Camelot – this spot in Hertfordshire
Where every hand is neatly planned –
And every heart would sheer!
Tis but a bus-ride to the Greenwood
Where with quill I pen quatrain
To my Dark Lady of The Suburbs
Whence my love will come again.
“Come be with me..” the poet said
“Into the garden, Maud”
The poet falls upon his pen –
and I upon the sward!”
(Is this bad enough?)
somehistory says
It’s better than the first poem. Did you make it all up yourself?
I once read and wrote poetry, but it was for my reading only that I wrote.
Phil Copson says
Yes – I took a few minutes over a mug of tea and a few biscuits to write something awful. After all – if William Shakespeare had his “Dark Lady of The Sonnets” as his muse – why shouldn’t poor E.J.Thribb have his “Dark Lady of The Suburbs”?
(Taken from E.J.Thribbs meisterwerk “Ode To Diane Abbott” written in the back of a school exercise book – which he composed instead of doing his physics homework, in the hope of impressing his great love, Tracey Harbottle in Form 4B. He lives in Stevenage and believes that frequenting the Chinese takeaway is the first step towards building a multi-cultural society. Probably.)
I know next to zilch about poetry – I’d never heard of either Wallace Stevens or Edgar Guest, but I felt that Steven’s composition had the appearance of poetry but wasn’t actually a poem at all. The references to a “viol” and “attendant Byzantines” seem suspiciously like Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “damsel with a dulcimer…it was an Abyssinian maid”.
(In fact, we’re probably lucky that he didn’t put the word “greensward” in there – or “dell” or “bower”…In which case I’d have had to summon the Literary Police and have his Poets Licence taken away.)
For my money, a real poem should crystallise something that you’ve never even thought before, and leave you thinking: “Wow! I could never have written that.”
Maybe neither Taylor’s “Kubla Khan” nor Shelley’s “Ozymandias”” are great poetry – but they are both great poems.
As is Betjeman’s “The Subaltern’s Love Song” – with what will Hugh compare that?
somehistory says
Your response shows you know more about the subject than I.
When it comes to it, I feel the same about poetry as I do other art…I know what I like.
My son had to compose some for a course he took and I got a book from the library so he could read some and get an idea about how to write verse.
We found a poem in it written from the perspective of a serial killer. It was really creepy, and very, very old.
Wondering as we read if the writer was also guilty.
Mick says
By a pond with Rex,
A red haired nymph screamed “pervert”,
And grabbed her towel.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
A haiku, forsooth, but where is the “kigo” word?
James Lincoln says
During undergrad, I needed a few extra credits to fill out my semester.
I ended up taking a course in poetry – just for fun.
Really enjoyed it!