Tears, Idle Tears
This is a part of a poem. This part of "The Princess"
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), perfectly describes the
mid-life feeling of looking back on your childhood and youth.
Tennyson wrote this at Tintern Abbey, as he said "full for me
of its bygone memories... Not real woe... rather the yearning
that young people occasionally experience for that which seems
to have passed away from them forever".
"Death in Life"- how well put!
This poem also illustrates what an enormous amount of hype is
involved in literature studies. Search the Internet for this
poem, and read what scholars and students say about it - a lot
of which is, I think, total rubbish. Analysis for the sake
of analysis. Like, dragging the schizophrenic effect of the
industrial revolution on British society into it, or
mathematically analyzing the rhythm, or even assuming this poem
has to do with loss of memory. When of course it is simply
about the human condition, the despair one feels when one
realises that the happy days of one's youth are gone forever
and life only moves one way, to its inevitable conclusion.
Anyway, judge for yourself.
Tears, Idle Tears
TEARS, Idle Tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in life, the days that are no more!
Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
The second one is another classic. We all face death, and
with Dylan Thomas, I believe that life is all we have,
and when the end comes, rather than accepting it with
grace, we should 'rage, rage against the dying of the
light'. Dylan Thomas wrote this poem about his own
father's passing away. Again, most of the analysis on
the web is nonsensical. The emotions he voices so well
are very human, and need no further explanation.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lighting they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Night Caller
One by an amateur: 18-year old Lucy Pogson won an amateur young poet
contest in the UK that landed her on the tube trains with the following
poem. It evokes a depressing rainy night so well (and that last twist is
so clever) that I found myself copying it on the train. This poem screams "England".
Rain rains at half one in the morning and the take-away stays
open.
My window is puddles on pavements shimmering in street-lamp
light.
In my hand the phone talks on: rain taps glass, and
running water runs to the ground.
Someone skids and screams their brakes a block away.
A silent film plays in the take-away across the street.
The traffic sounds like wind moving round houses.
And distant club beats mud the air and heave the city high.
The phone still speaks, the windy traffic blows.
The window runs. He talks like rain rains.
I listen like the take-away stays open.
Shakespeare's Sonnet 12:
Another perfect iambic pentameter, and again about the fact that it all ends in death:
When I do count the clock that tells the time
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white,
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defense
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
