April is National Poetry Month!

A few fandoms ago, I knew a woman who used the last line of this poem as her signature quote. I strongly associate the poem with her because of it, and I always thought it was the most marvelous sentiment--so strong, so poetic, so defiant and brave, and such a wonderful summary of that person--and then, years later, I read the poem itself and realized the line is not directed at the wrongness of the world in general, but is specifically an expression of Millay's fear and hatred of death.

That said...it's still a marvelous sentiment, whether in the context of her rejection of death, or pulled out of context and left to stand against the great wrongnesses of the world.


"Dirge Without Music," Edna St. Vincent Millay.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, --
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave,
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

April is National Poetry Month!

And because I'm wicked behind, and just for fun...fragments of this poem float around in my backbrain. One of the most curious memories I have of college relates to this poem. Though I can't recall specifically, I believe I had recently read or re-read this poem shortly before I was attending a Greek history class. During a slide presentation in the class, the professor said something that sounded like a line from the poem, and a moment later, I had a distinct audible hallucination of someone read the rest of the line, "down to a sunless sea"--I say "hallucination" because I did not simply recite the line in my head, but heard it as clearly as if someone sitting beside me had said it out loud. The number of recognizable hallucinations I've had in my life can be counted on one hand, so it made an impression on me.

It's also important to know this poem so that at picnics and brunches, you can pick up pieces of honeydew, quote that stanza, and confuse the fuck out of your unenlightened brethren.


"Kubla Khan," Samuel Coleridge.


In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

April is National Poetry Month!

April is National Poetry Month! And in honor of my very first concession to disease in the seven months since I began working at the bookstore--a cute little throat tickle that mutated overnight into a full-fledged, obnoxious hack that will probably keep me and my roommate awake tonight--I give you some Pope.

"Shut, shut the door! Good John," fatigued, I said.
"Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead."

Just kidding! Have a Robert Burns elegy to his poor dead sheep, Mailie.


"Poor Mailie's Elegy," Robert Burns.

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose;
Our bardie's fate is at a close,
Past a' remead!
The last, sad cape-stane o' his woes;
Poor Mailie's dead!

It's no the loss o' warl's gear,
That could sae bitter draw the tear,
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear
The mourning weed:
He's lost a friend an' neebor dear
In Mailie dead.

Thro' a' the town she trotted by him;
A lang half-mile she could descry him;
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed:
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him,
Than Mailie dead.

( text )

...and for good measure, his account of Mailie's dying words to her kids.

( The Death And Dying Words Of Poor Mailie, The Author's Only Pet Yowe. An Unco Mournfu' Tale. )

April is National Poetry Month!

Two today because I started this a week late, and I'm still about eight days behind.

Yeats! I could do a poem every day for a month with just Yeats and Millay and never have to stray from my best beloveds. I'll try not to do too many for each. This is not my favorite Yeats poem--some of you might actually know what is--but it has crept and crawled through my mind for a long time, and I once almost managed to write a story from the sheer sensual inspiration of it.

By the way, Yeats is a dirty old man.


"To a Young Girl," W.B. Yeats.

MY dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so;
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know,
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought,
That she denies
And has forgot,
Set all her blood astir
And glittered in her eyes.


I'm sure my taste in and experiences with poetry have become apparent by now, but I'll try to dig up something different for tomorrow. Variety and spice, etc.