美国诗歌选读 9.5
INTRODUCTION
What Is Poetry
Poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient. It dates back to the misty origins of man. The most primitive peoples have used it, and the most civilized have cultivated it. In all ages and in all countries, poetry has been written and eagerly read or listened to by all kinds and conditions of people. Why? First, because it has given pleasure. But it is not just one of the many forms of amusement as bowling or chess. Rather it has been regarded as something central to each man’s existence, something having unique value to the fully realized life, something which he is better off for having and which he is spiritually impoverished without.
The initial definition of poetry：a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language. The first function of language is to communicate information. But it is not primarily to communicate information that different forms of literature including poetry are written. These exist to bring us a sense and perception of life, to widen and sharpen our contacts with existence. Their concern is with experience. Literature exists to communicate significant experience. The poet, from his own store of felt, observed, or imagined experiences, selects, combines, and reorganizes. He creates new experiences for the reader, significant because concentrated and organized, in which the reader can participate and which he may use to give him a greater awareness and understanding of his world. Literature, in other words, can be used as a gear for stepping up the intensity and increasing the range of our experience. This is the literary use of language, for literature is not only an aid to living but a means of living. Its function is not to tell us about experience, but to allow us imaginatively to participate in it. It is a means of allowing us, through the imagination to live more fully, more deeply, more richly, and with greater awareness by broadening our experience, or by deepening our experience.
In poetry, language is used simultaneously for two purposes---- communication of thoughts or feelings and aesthetic effects.
Two false approaches:
1) always looks for a lesson, a moral, a bit of moral instruction.
2) expects to find poetry always beautiful; the function of poetry is sometimes to be ugly rather than beautiful.
Poetry takes all life as its province. Its primary concern is not with beauty, not with philosophical truth, not with persuasion, but with experience.
Poetry is the most condensed and concentrated form of literature saying most in the fewest number of words.
Poetry is a kind of multi-dimensional language. Ordinary language is only one dimensional. It involves the listener’s intelligence or understanding.
Poetry, which is language used to communicate experience, it must involve not only his intelligence but also his senses, his emotion s, and his imagination.
Robert Frost has said: ―Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another.‖
Kinds of Poetry
Poetry can be divided into two large kinds, lyric poetry and narrative poetry. In general, lyric poetry expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. Narrative poetry of course, tells some kind of story.
How to Read Poetry
1)Read a poem more than once.
2)Keep a dictionary by you and use it.
3)Read so as to hear the sounds of the words in your mind.
4)Always pay careful attention to what the poem is saying.
5)Practice occasionally reading a poem aloud.
Consider the following when reading a poem:
Who is the speaker? (point of view) author Vs. speaker
What is the central purpose? (theme) In modern poetry, there is often a lack of purpose.
By what means is the purpose achieved? (artistic techniques and the aesthetic effects)
Consider the following when judging a poem:
What is its central purpose?
How fully has the purpose been accomplished?
How important is this purpose?
Reading poetry is not to sooth and relax but to arouse and awaken, to shock one into life, to make one more alive. Reading poetry demands mental efforts. ―A paraphrase of a po em is the barest, most inadequate approximation of what the poem really says. It is no more equivalent to the poem than a corpse is equivalent to a man‖
The theme of a poem is a statement about its subject.
The tone of a poem is the attitude or feelings it expresses about the theme.
The speaker: whose voice do we hear?
Some Useful Terminologies：
Rhyme: a rhyme occurs when two or more words have the same last vowel and consonant sound (or consonant cluster). It is the most important element and what makes poetry.
Rhythm: the stress pattern measured by meter.
Meter: in a poem, when stress is organized to form regular rhythm, the term used for it is meter.
Foot: the foot is actually the unit of meter which is the stressed and unstressed syllables repeated to form a metrical pattern. The main types of foot include the following:
1.iamb
2.trochee
3.anapest
4.dactyl
5.spondee
6.pyrrhic
Number of feet in a line:
monometer (one foot)
dimeter (two feet)
trimester (three feet)
tetrameter (four feet)
pentameter (five feet)
hexameter (six feet)
heptameter (seven feet)
octameter (eight feet)
The usual forms of poems according to the number of lines: couplet
heroic couplet
tercet (terza rima)
quatrain
limerick
sestet
octave
Spenserian Stanza
sonnet
blank verse
free verse (vers libre) Anne Bradstreet (1612---1672)
Anne Bradstreet (ca. 1612 - September 16, 1672), colonial American woman, was the first published American woman writer. Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England. She was the daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley and Dorothy Yorke Dudley. At the age of 16, she married Simon Bradstreet, an employee and future governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Anne and Simon emigrated to America along with Anne's parents in 1630 aboard the Arabella. Bradstreet wrote poetry of domestic and religious themes, and in 1650, she published The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America which appeared in London. In 1678, she (posthumously) published Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning in America. She died in Andover, MA, and is buried in the Old Burying Point in Salem, MA. Some Verses on the Burning of Our House
In Silent night when rest I took
For sorrow near I did not look
I wakened was with thund’ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
That fearful sound of ―Fire!‖ and ―Fire!‖
Let no man know is my desire.
I, starting up, the light did spy,
And to my God my heart did cry
To strengthen me in my distress
And not to leave me succorless.
Then, coming out, behold a space
The flame consume my dwelling place. And when I could no longer look,
I blest His name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust. Yea, so it was, and so ’twas just.
It was His own, it was not mine,
Far be it that I should repine;
He might of all justly bereft
But yet sufficient for us left.
When by the ruins oft I past
My sorrowing eyes aside did cast,
And here and there the places I spy Where oft I sat and long did lie:
Here stood that trunk, and there that chest, There lay that store I counted best.
My pleasant things in ashes lie,
And them behold no more shall I.
Under thy roof no guest shall sit,
Nor at thy table eat a bit.
No pleasant tale shall e’er be told,
Nor things recounted done of old.
No candle e’er shall shine in thee,Nor brideg room’s voice e’er heard shall be.
In silence ever shall thou lie,
Adieu, Adieu, all’s vanity.
Then straight I ’gin my heart to chide,
And did thy wealth on earth abide?
Didst fix thy hope on mold’ring dust?
The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?
Raise up thy thoughts above the sky
That dunghill mists away may fly.
Thou hast an house on high erect,
Framed by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished,
Stands permanent though this befled.
It’s purchased and paid for too
By Him who hath enough to do.
A price so vast as is unknown
Yet by His gift is made thine own;
There’s wealth enough, I need no more,
Farewell, my pelf, farewell my store.
The world no longer let me love,
My hope and treasure lies above.
Literary Terminology
Allusion: a figure of speech making casual reference to a famous historical or literary figure or event. Biblical allusions are common in English literature, such as Shakespeare's ―A Daniel come to
judgment,‖ in The Merchant of Venice. Complex literary allusion is characteristic of much modern poetry; a good example is T. S. Eliot’s The waste Land and the author’s notes to that poem.
To My Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers can not quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
Then heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Philip Freneau (1752---1832)
Philip Freneau was an ardent patriot who is still remembered as the ―poet of the American Revolution.‖ While in college, he had already determined to become a poet. After his experience as a sailor in the Revolutionary War, he turned to newspaper and pamphlet writing. Today, however, Freneau is remembered more for his poetry than his prose. Two of his poems are reprinted below.
The first, ―The Wild Honey Suckle‖ was virtually unread in the poet‘s lifetime, yet it deserves a place among major English and American works of poetry of that time. Much of the beauty of the poem lies in the sounds of the words and the effects created through changes in rhythm.
The idea for the second poem, ―The Indian Burying Ground,‖ was suggested by the fact that some Indian tribes buried their dead in a sitting, instead of a lying, position. This poem, too, is marked by a regularity of rhythm and meter and by the use of ―Reason‖ as an abstraction which is personified. The Wild Honey Suckle
Fair flower, that does so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet;
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.
By Nature’s self in white arrayed,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.
Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died ---- nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden Bloom;
Unpitying frosts, and Autumns’ power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
Literary Terminology
Apostrophe: A figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present. In The Wild Honey Suckle, the speaker is addressing the flower directly as if she could hear and understand and might respond to the speech.
The Indian Burying Ground
In spite of all the learn’d have said,
I still my old opinion keep;
The posture, that we give the dead,
Points out the soul’s eternal sleep.
Not so the ancients of these lands ---- The Indian, when from life released, Again is seated with his friends,
And shares again the joyous feast.
His imaged birds, and painted bowl, And venison, for a journey dressed, Bespeak the nature of the soul, Activity, that knows no rest.
His bow, for action ready bent,
And arrows, with a head of stone, Can only mean that life is spent,
And not the old ideas gone.
Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way, No fraud upon the dead commit ---- Observe the swelling turf, and say They do not lie, but here they sit. Here still a lofty rock remains,
On which the curious eye may trace (Now wasted, half, by wearing rains) The fancies of a ruder race.
Here still an aged elm aspires,
Beneath whose far-projecting shade
(And which the shepherd still admires)
The children of the forest played!
There oft a restless Indian queen
(Pale Shebah, with her braided hair)
And many a barbarous form is seen
To chide the man that lingers there.
By midnight moons, o’er moistening dews;
In habit for the chase arrayed,
The hunter still the deer pursues,
The hunter and the deer, a shade!
And long shall timorous fancy see
The painted chief, and pointed spear,
And Reason’s self shall bow the knee
To shadows and delusions here.
William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), American poet and journalist, born in Cummington, Massachusetts, and trained in law. Bryant wrote his finest poetry in his youth. The first draft of "Thanatopsis," his most famous poem, was written when he was 16 years of age, and he was only 27 years old when his first published volume, Poems,appeared in 1821. Poems included, in addition to "Thanatopsis," "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," "Green River," and "To a Waterfowl." From then until his death, Bryant was known as one of the most distinguished poets in the United States.
In 1825 he went to New York City, where he became coeditor of the New York Review, a literary periodical, and a year later an editor for the New York Evening Post. By 1829 he was editor in chief of the Post and later part owner. As a journalist he campaigned vigorously for free trade, free speech, the rights of workers, and the abolition of slavery. He was instrumental in organizing the Republican Party and was an ardent partisan of the Union cause during the American Civil War.
Poetry was largely an avocation for Bryant in his later years. He produced several volumes of verse, none of which is considered equal to the poems he wrote in his youth. Bryant is often called the American Wordsworth because, like the romantic poet William Wordsworth, he wrote about nature. Although Bryant's poetry was frequently didactic, he is best remembered for his beautiful descriptions of scenes in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. For Bryant, nature was a symbol of the power of God and a moral influence on humanity. Among his other works are translations of the Iliad (1870) and the Odyssey(1871), by Homer, still considered among the
best in English verse.
The Yellow Violet
When beechen buds begin to swell, And woods the blue bird’s warble know, The yellow violet’s modest bell Peeps from the last year’s leaves below
Ere russet fields their green resume, Sweet flower! I love in forest bare,
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume Alone is in the virgin air.
Of all her train, the hands of Spring First plant thee in the watery mould; And I have seen thee blossoming Beside the snow bank’s edges cold.
Thy parent Sun, who bade thee view Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip, Has bathed thee in his own bright hue, And streak’d with jet thy glowing lip.
Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat, And earthward bent thy gentle eye, Unapt the passing view to meet, When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh.
Oft, in the sunless April day,
Thy early smile has staid my walk;
But midst the gorgeous blooms of May,
I pass’d thee on thy humble stalk.
So they, who climb to wealth, forget
The friends in darker fortunes tried;
I copied them ---- but I regret
That I should ape the ways of pride.
And when again the genial hour
Awakes the painted tribes of light,
I’ll not o’erlook the modest flower
That made the woods of April bright. Thanatopsis
To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow coffin house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; ----
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around---- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air---- Comes a still voice ---- Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world ---- with kings, The powerful of the earth ---- the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, ---- the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods, ---- rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and poured round all, Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste, ----
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. ---- Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings ---- yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep ---- the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the songs of men,
The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And speechless babe, and the gray-headed man ---- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
To A Waterfowl
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast---- The desert and illimitable air----
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o’er th y sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
Best known for his poems and short fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston Jan 19, 1809, died Oct 7, 1849 in Baltimore, deserves more credit than any other writer for the transformation of the short story from anecdote to art. He virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller. He also produced some of the most influential literary criticism of his time, important theoretical statements on poetry and the short story, and has had a worldwide influence on literature.
Israfel
“And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetes t voice of all God’s creatures.” ---- Koran In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
―Whos e heart-strings are a lute‖;
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.
Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamored moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red Levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)
Pauses in Heaven.
And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Isarafeli’s fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings ----
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.
But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love’s a grown-up God, Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star. Therefore, thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest! Merrily live, and long!
The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit ---- Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervor of thy lute ---- Well may the stars be mute! Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely ---- flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours. If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.
Literary Terminology
Paradox: contradictory statement that is true
Hyperbole: exaggeration
Metaphor:comparison of one thing (shadow) to an unlike thing (sunshine)
To stress the brilliance of Israfel's emotional performance, Poe uses a combination of paradox, hyperbole, and metaphor when he says in the two lines ending Stanza 7 that the shadow Israfel casts is sunshine:
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.
Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee; ----
And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.
She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love ---- I and my Annabel Lee ----
With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me: ----
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea
That the wind came out of the cloud,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we ----
Of many far wiser than we ----
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: ----
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulcher there by the sea ----
In her tomb by the side of the sea.
Literary Terminology
Imagery: A term used widely in contemporary criticism, imagery has a great variety of meanings. In its literal sense it means the collection of Images within a literary work or a unit of a literary work. In a broader sense it is used as synonymous with Trope or Figure of Speech. Many contemporary critics are deeply concerned over the ―structure of Images‖, ―the Image-clusters,‖ and ―thematic imagery.‖ Such patterns of imagery, often without the conscious knowledge of author or reader, are sometimes taken to be keys to
the ―deeper‖ meaning of a literary work or pointers to the unconscious motivations of its author.
The Raven
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
―’Tis some visiter,‖ I muttered, ―tapping at my chamber door ----
Only this and nothing more‖
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; ---- vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow ---- sorrow for the lost Lenore ----
For the rare and radiant maiden the angels name Lenore ----
Nameless here for evermore. And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me ---- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
―’Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; ---- Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; ----
Thi s it is and nothing more.‖Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
―Sir,‖ said I, ―or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you‖ ---- here I opened wide the door; ----
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
and the only word there spoken was the whispered word. ―Lenore!‖This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, ―Lenore!‖
Merely this, and nothing more. Then into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
―Surely,‖ said I, ―that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore ----
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; ----
―’Tis the wind and nothing more!: Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed
he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door ---- Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door ----
Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
―Though th y crest be shorn and shaven, thou,‖ I said, ―art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore ----
Tell m e what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!‖ ----
Quoth the Raven ―Nevermore.‖Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly. Though its answer little meaning ---- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door ---- Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as ―Nevermore.‖But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then uttered ---- not a feather then he fluttered ---- Till I scarcely more muttered, ―Other friends have flown before ---- On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.‖
Quoth the raven, ―Nevermore‖. Wondering at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
―Doubtless,‖ said I, ―What it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and flowed faster ---- so, when Hope he would adjure,
Stern Despair returned, instead of the sweet Hope he dared adjure ----
That sad answer, ―Nevermore!‖But the Raven still beguiling all my sad fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in from of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore ---- What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking ―Nevermore.‖This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by angels whose faint foot falls tinkled on the tufted floor. ―Wretch,‖ I cried, ―thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite ---- respite and Nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Let me quaff this kind Nepe nthe and forget this lost Lenore!‖
Quoth the Raven ―Nevermore‖Prophet!‖ said I, ―thing of evil! ---- prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted ----
On this home by Horror haunted ---- tell me truly, I implore ----
Is there- is there balm in Gilead? ---- tell me ----tell me, I implore!‖
Quoth the Raven ―Nevermore‖
―Prophet!‖ said I, ―thing of evil! ----prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us ---- by that God both adore ---- Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore ---- Clasp a rare and rad iant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.‖
Quoth the Raven ―Nevermore‖
―Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!‖ I shrieked upstarting ---- ―Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s plutonian shore! Leave no back plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! ----quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!‖
Quoth the Raven ―Nevermore‖
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallied bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of demon that is dreaming,
And the lamp light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted ---- nevermore! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Longfellow was born in Maine, but lived most of his adult life in Cambridge, the village outside Boston where many writers lived. One of Longfel low‘s grandfathers was a state senator and the other grandfather had been a Revolutionary War general and a Congressman. Longfellow‘s family also expected him to choose a career of Public service, as well as to support himself in some profession. Following his graduation in 1826 from Bowdoin College, where he was a classmate of Nathaniel Hawthorn, Longfellow went to Europe to study. When he returned to the United States three years later, he taught European languages, first at Bowdoin and then at
Harvard. For a number of years, though his poetry was quite popular, Longfellow continued to earn his living by teaching, but after 18 years of teaching at Harvard, he resigned his position because he felt it interfered with his writing.
During the last years of his life, Longfellow received many honors, including honorary degrees from Cambridge and Oxford Universities in England. After his death, a bust of Longfellow was plac ed in the Poet‘s Corner of Westminster Abbey ---- the first American to be so honored.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow brought European culture to the attention of Americans, and in turn spread American folklore in Europe, where his work was popular. American readers liked Longfellow‘s lyrical style, which was influenced by the German Romantic poets, and they were pleased by his emphasis on such subjects as home, family, nature, and religion. His style and subjects were conventional, especially in comparison with Whitman or more modern writers, and over the years Longfellow‘s position as a major American poet has declined. Nevertheless, in the late 19th century, Longfellow was without a doubt the most popular American poet.
A Psalm of Life
WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait. Excelsior
The shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath, Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue, Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright; Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan, Excelsior!
"Try not the Pass!" the old man said: "Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!
And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!
"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh, Excelsior!
"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air, Excelsior!
A traveler, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device, Excelsior!
There in the twilight cold and gray, Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star, Excelsior!
My Lost Youth
Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
I remember the black wharves and the ships,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still: "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
I remember the gl eams and gl ooms that dart Across the school-boy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."ar Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,