“Invective against Swans”(1923) -By Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

The soul, O ganders, flies beyond the parks
And far beyond the discords of the wind.

A bronze rain from the sun descending marks
The death of summer, which that time endures

Like one who scrawls a listless testament
Of golden quirks and Paphian caricatures,

Bequeathing your white feathers to the moon
And giving your bland motions to the air.

Behold, already on the long parades
The crows anoint the statues with their dirt.

And the soul, O ganders, being lonely, flies
Beyond your chilly chariots, to the skies.

First of all the poem is certainly not an invective nor is it against swans.The poet has nothing against swans, only against swans written about ,ad nauseam, in Victorian literature invoking classical Hellenic symbols. The soul seems to have some connection to the swans., especially lovers’ souls, which between themselves, are platonically connected. In metaphysical poetry ,souls are invoked frequently to emphasize the permanence of love , their victory over the ephemerality of a purely physical union.

The swans are here just ganders. males of geese, not unduly worried about union of souls but just getting on in the sky, beyond the parks and the turbulence of the wind. Their union is much more mundane and takes place uneventfully in the slush of a marshy lake. No doubt the soul moves ahead of them.

A bronze rain from the sun marks the death of summer. Its golden quirks and Pamphian caricatures promptly bequeath the swan’s white feathers to the moon who will come only much later in the night. The swans’ bland motions will be noticed only when the moonlight comes, not till then.

As of now ,the soul , being lonely and full of ennui, has focused its entire energies on flying in the sky and the ganders will have a hard time catching up with it.

Love the leg-pulling of contemporary poets that the poet seems to be indulging in.

The line on crows anointing statues with their dirt is hilarious!

Behold, already on the long parades
The crows anoint the statues with their dirt.

“Carnal apple,Woman filled, Burning moon”- By Pablo Neruda

By Pablo Neruda

Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.

A more sensual poem one cannot find , so much filled with fascinating visual and tactile imagery. “Apple” is highly suggestive, the forbidden apple. A body’s apple, a woman-filled, a burning moon. “Carnal” , a body adjective has its biblical associations. The smell of sea-weed is an olfactory throwback to the green sea from where we had all come. Secret knowledge is clasped between her two pillars, the mysteries of love’s creation. Mark the word clasped, suggesting the strong holding together of her thighs before they are loosened for love. Man touches the primal night with his senses. Love is a journey through the waters and stars, through sharp tempests of grain.Love is a war of lightning .

The most delicious line is “two bodies ruined by a single sweetness” .Bodies ruined because love leaves a heavy toll on them. A common sweetness that destroys the integrity of the individual bodies and lumps them together into a single ecstatic experience.

“Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity” is exquisite.Tiny infinity suggests a tiny space that contains infinity,with her margins, her rivers,her diminutive villages. Her body is infinite space that is astronomer’s delight, an explorer’s passion. An explosion occurs and is transmitted through the narrow blood channels to precipitate a light in the dark.

..and thereby hangs a tale

A FOOL IN THE FOREST

A fool, a fool! I met a fool in the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool
Who laid him down and bask’d him in the sun,
And rail’d on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and, yet, a motley fool.
‘Good morrow, fool,’ quoth I. ‘No, sir,’ quoth he,
‘Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:’
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, ‘It is ten o’clock:
Thus we may see,’ quoth he, ‘how the world wags:
‘Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more ’twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.’ When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.

(Shakespeare’s As You Like It)

Jaques the melancholic said this to the woodsmen in Shakespeare’s As You like It , a monologue reflecting his own deep down melancholy, an attitude he has cultivated out of philosophical pretensions. Jaques the melancholic sees sorrow everywhere, a miserable world ,where the clock marks hour to hour as you ripe and ripe and then you rot and rot on your way to the dusty death.

The tale that hangs thereby is not merely the hours marking our time because there is no tale in a routine passage of time. The motley fool is trying to make a tale out of the inconsequential passing of time.He basks in the sun and waits for lady Fortune to smile and asks not to be called the Fool till she sends down his fortune. That is because the Fool is indeed a wise man who knows lady Fortune will not send any such thing. He therefore takes out a dial from poke and observes its hours to pontificate about life, how the world wags. Fools are indeed deep and contemplative.

But the tale actually hangs by the melancholic laughing an hour without intermission, an hour by the Fool’s clock. His admiration for the fool increases as he looks at the motley colors of the Fool’s dress and calls him a noble fool. The Fool is not joker wearing a motley dress for the amusement of the King and his nobles. Here is a noble Fool, who is wiser than many of the King’s nobles. Thereby hangs the tale.

Our early approaches to the Infinity

On a height he stood that looked towards greater heights.
Our early approaches to the Infinite
Are sunrise splendours on a marvellous verge
While lingers yet unseen the glorious sun.
What now we see is a shadow of what must come.
The earth’s uplook to a remote Unknown
Is a preface only of the epic climb
Of human soul from its flat earthly state
To the discovery of a greater self
And the far gleam of an eternal Light.

(excerpt from Canto 4 of Savitri, a beautiful poem by Aurobindo, one of India’s greatest poet-thinkers)

Apart from the mysticism of the poem Savitri by Aurobindo , lines such as these are pure magic ,imbued with the richness of exquisite imagery. One stood ,already, on a height that looked towards greater heights . A poet-photographer’s vision of the sunrise slowly coming out from the hills is the nearest approximation to overwhelming beauty, an early approach to the Infinite. A shadow of what is to come. A mere preface to the epic climb ahead(“to the greater heights”).

“Our early approaches to the Infinite” is simply delicious. “early” could be anything- an early dawn, an early spiritual experience, an early climb to the greater heights, an early approach to God , early graduation from the finite to the infinite.

“Dirge in the Woods “- By George Meredith

A wind sways the pines,
And below.
Not a breath of wild air;
Still as the mosses that glow
On the flooring and over the lines
Of the roots here and there.
The pine-tree drops its dead;
They are quiet, as under the sea.
Overhead, overhead
Rushes life in a race,
As the clouds the clouds chase;
And we go,
And we drop like the fruits of the tree,
Even we,
Even so.

The last lines ,which sound so mournful , are a dirge indeed. “Even we, even so” .We drop like the fruits of the tree. We are born as a flower and turn a fruit , ripen and drop off. Rather we are dropped off. Like the pine cones that drop into the soft mud of the forest floor. Imagine the pine needles softly piercing the mud.No noise. They are quiet. Like the under-things in the ocean softly dropping to the floor from a boisterous sea surface .Up in the top branches of the pine there is a noisy breeze ,swaying them with a wild air,while there is stillness in the glowing moss on the pine’s roots and the cones lying about in random.

The pine tree drops its dead. The world drops its dead as quietly.All the while there is hectic activity in the top branches like the world that goes on with its race.Even so.even we.

There is no Victorian stiffness such as one would expect in poetry of the time. To me Meredith’s poem reads like a nature poem.The dirge part is less relevant to me than the exquisite description of the wood with its beautiful imagery.

The Banyan Tree by Rabindranath Tagore

O you shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond,
have you forgotten the little child, like the birds that have nested
in your branches and left you?

Do you not remember how he sat at the window and wondered
at the tangle of your roots and plunged underground?

The women would come to fill their jars in the pond,
and your huge black shadow would wriggle on the water
like sleep struggling to wake up.

Sunlight danced on the ripples like restless tiny shuttles
weaving golden tapestry.

Two ducks swam by the weedy margin above their shadows,
and the child would sit still and think.

He longed to be the wind and blow through your resting branches,
to be your shadow and lengthen with the day on the water,
to be a bird and perch on your topmost twig, and to float like
those ducks among the weeds and shadows.

I have always loved this simple Tagore poem ,so full of pretty images. Nice to think of the birds that have nested in the shaggy hair of the banyan and left it. Come to think of it ,the banyan has lost count of the birds that have nested in her hair,made it shaggy and left for other trees,other skies. The banyan has forgotten all of them,standing on the bank of the pond.

But surely it cannot forget the little child on the window who admired her tangled roots and plunged underground (jumped from the high window). Surely not the women who would fill their jars in the pond,as the banyan’s shadow would wiggle on the water making indecent passes at them. “sleep struggling to wake up” is a delicious image !

The most brilliant image is that of the sunlight dancing on the ripples like a weaver’s shuttle weaving fine golden tapestry.

Two ducks swam by the weedy margin above their shadows (imagine this scene as a photographer’s composition and you will love it) .

The child would sit still and think. Think what? How would it be to be the wind and blow through her branches? To be the banyan’s shadow on the water that will lengthen as the day progresses. To be a bird that perches on the topmost twig of the banyan and survey the pond . To float like the ducks among the weeds and shadows..

There are still countless ponds and banyans on their banks where time stands still in the Bengal of Tagore.But the child is missing from the window. He is now playing video games in a hole of an apartment in Kolkata.

THE ROSE FAMILY by Robert FROST

The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only know
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose
But were always a rose.

I think the poet is pulling the beloved’s legs .Firstly ,the rose is a cliche to describe female beauty and if that is what she is looking for ,well ,let her have it. Between the two of us, she is not all that a rose .She may not deserve to be called a rose but what is there in a name and you do not lose anything by calling her a rose. If an apple can be called a rose, why not the beloved? Secondly, what is so big about being a rose? A pear or an apple can as well be the rose. The way metaphors go, you can call anything a rose ,and they are so worn out through centuries ,such tired cliches! Everything has its unique identity that cannot be called something else.Thirdly a rose is so boring, in terms of a fixed identity of standing for beauty, a hackneyed symbol for fragile beauty. Of course she is a rose, if that is what she would prefer.

“Dreams”- By Langston Hughes

DREAMS

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967 / Missouri/The United States)

I love the simplicity and beauty of this pretty poem. So much like a song. “Hold fast to dreams”(occurs twice in the poem) so they do not go away and life becomes a barren field frozen with snow. Holding fast is a deliberate clinging to hope, notwithstanding the pain of reality. The images are from the early days of aviation, when man’s dreams of flying culminated in the development of the airplane that substituted for a bird in his imagination.

“The Tiger and the Deer” -By Aurobindo

Brilliant, crouching, slouching, what crept through the green heart of the forest,
Gleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft soundless paws of grandeur and murder?
The wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice And the noise of its steps perturb the pitiless Splendour,
Hardly daring to breathe.But the great beast crouched and crept, and crept and crouched a last time, noiseless, fatal,
Till suddenly death leaped on the beautiful wild deer as it drank

Unsuspecting from the great pool in the forest’s coolness and shadow,
And it fell and, torn, died remembering its mate left sole in the deep woodland,
– Destroyed, the mild harmless beauty by the strong cruel beauty in Nature.
But a day may yet come when the tiger crouches and leaps no more in the dangerous heart of the forest,
As the mammoth shakes no more the plains of Asia;
Still then shall the beautiful wild deer drink from the coolness of great pools in the leaves* shadow.
The mighty perish in their might;
The slain survive the slayer.

Two or three beautiful usages in the poem have captivated me. I mean images that could be termed post-modern

soundless paws of grandeur and murder

It is not “soundless paws” that is noteworthy but ‘of grandeur and murder” ,which at once evokes an ambivalence ,that is almost philosophical. Grandeur comes first or murder? Murder is banal, a deliberate act of killing that does not make the tiger any more grand than any common carnivore but there is a grandeur in its “burning bright” form(“tiger,tiger burning bright” of Blake),in the beauty of the beast in the green heart of the forest, in its importance in the grand design of the forest.The grandeur transforms “murder ” into an activity that the tiger performs as a key role holder in the forest’s scheme of things.

In the forest’s coolness and shadow

A beautiful usage in which “shadow” becomes part of “coolness” but is much more than contributor to coolness , a visual image of the trees casting their shadows on the forest floor combined with a tactile image of their coolness i.e leaves filtering both light and heat of the sun.

The wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice and the noise of its steps perturbs the pitiless Splendor

Another beautiful image. I love the wind slipping through the leaves.Try to imagine a gentle breeze entering the latticed foliage of the trees without shaking the branches and blowing on the dry leaves of the forest floor.Even the wind is terrified of the pitiless Splendor.

“To A Skylark”-A poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun
O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see–we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud.
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal
Or triumphal chaunt
Matched with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt–
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now!

As I read this under-grad poem once again, what has struck me most is the use of the negative prefix “un” to suggest the ethereal as distinguished from the physical:

Unpremeditated art
Scattering unbeholden
Singing (hymns) unbidden
Unbodied joy

Everything about the skylark is ethereal, with no interference from the sensory perceptions of a human being.Its song is art but with no premeditated music scheme.Its light scatters like a glow-worm,unbeholden(by the human eye) in the grass and flowers. It sings hymns like a poet hidden, without being bidden by a church priest. It is pure “unbodied joy”,the result of an ecstacy pure in its form, unconnected with the pleasures of the senses. Everything about it is moving away from the body, from the drossness of a carnal being.

Remember it is not non-bodied joy ,but unbodied joy which means a calculated human effort to move away from the physical.

Another nice negative prefix used is in “deflowered” , a beautiful sensory term used for the rose temporarily hidden behind the leaves as a result of the wind’s blowing.Here the wind is the molester ,who deflowers the rose.

Of course ,the most memorable lines are:

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

The allierated “s” (sincerest,some,sweetest,songs,saddest) lends a soft tonality to the lines as they are recited.