Romance
by WJ Turner
When I was but thirteen or so
I went into a golden land,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Took me by the hand.
My father died, my brother too,
They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetl
In the sunlight gleams.
They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetl
In the sunlight gleams.
I dimly heard the master’s voice
And boys far-off at play, –
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had stolen me away.
And boys far-off at play, –
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had stolen me away.
I walked in a great golden dream
To and fro from school –
Shining Popocatapetl
The dusty streets did rule.
To and fro from school –
Shining Popocatapetl
The dusty streets did rule.
I walked home with a gold dark boy
And never a word I’d say,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had taken my speech away.
And never a word I’d say,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had taken my speech away.
I gazed entranced upon his face
Fairer than any flower—
O shining Popocatapetl
It was thy magic hour:
Fairer than any flower—
O shining Popocatapetl
It was thy magic hour:
The houses, people, traffic seemed
Thin fading dreams by day;
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi,
They had stolen my soul away!
Thin fading dreams by day;
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi,
They had stolen my soul away!
She tells her love while half asleep
by Robert Graves
She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth turns in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
by Robert Graves
She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth turns in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
I know of no short poem in the English language that packs so much magic and memorability into so few lines, except perhaps for Anon’s masterpiece (mistress-piece?), the early 16th-century lyric known as Western Wind.
Both poems share a deceptive simplicity of diction and seductive cadence, the evocation of the natural world as the proper theatre of love, and an air of the mysterious – but the Graves lyric, I think, reaches even farther and deeper into the psychic hinterland of besotted love than does the earlier poem. It catches perfectly the trance of new love, perhaps love as yet undeclared, the dawning realisation implied in “half-words”, the reticence and delicious hesitation of one who right now, right here is discovering herself, or himself, new-fledged in love.
The shift in scale that permits identification with the Earth turning towards rebirth in spring is brought perfectly home in the poem’s masterstroke, the repetition of “Despite the snow” and, even more, the suspension of time in that amplifiying “falling”. A perfect poem.
Theo Dorgan’s latest collection is Nine Bright Shiners
Theo Dorgan’s latest collection is Nine Bright Shiners
Medbh McGuckian
When one was sweet and twenty something , clutching at the straw of one’s virginity, it was Yeats’s lessons in lovesex that hit home, from “Brown penny, one cannot begin it too soon,” to the doting grandmother in When you are Old. Paul Muldoon’s clever-clever Cuba focused on a Catholic family in the nuclear ’60s subverting puritanical denials and frustrations with a gesture of tenderness. The girl in it does not escape, whereas in John Francis Waller’s Victorian ballad, The Spinning Wheel Song, the maid Eileen woos her grandmother into drowsiness with her own affectionate singing (all wrong according to the old woman), lulls her and leaps out in a bid for freedom to rove in the moonlight with her true love.
When one was sweet and twenty something , clutching at the straw of one’s virginity, it was Yeats’s lessons in lovesex that hit home, from “Brown penny, one cannot begin it too soon,” to the doting grandmother in When you are Old. Paul Muldoon’s clever-clever Cuba focused on a Catholic family in the nuclear ’60s subverting puritanical denials and frustrations with a gesture of tenderness. The girl in it does not escape, whereas in John Francis Waller’s Victorian ballad, The Spinning Wheel Song, the maid Eileen woos her grandmother into drowsiness with her own affectionate singing (all wrong according to the old woman), lulls her and leaps out in a bid for freedom to rove in the moonlight with her true love.
Being myself a protective grandmother now, I mind learning this chant as a child of eight and being seduced by the patterns and interweaving tunes of the sounds,the work concealing the lovemaking, the rhymes and inversions twisting the Irish out of the English.
Medbh McGuckian’s latest collection is Love, the Magician (Arlen House, 2018)
Medbh McGuckian’s latest collection is Love, the Magician (Arlen House, 2018)
Enda Wyley
Some of the finest, most moving love poems in the world have grown out of desolation and isolation. And yet, the right love poem is strangely reassuring. Someone else has felt like us and has actually survived to write about it. Suddenly we know we are not alone. Suddenly we can make the love poem our own. Here is a favourite, a simple four line love lyric which I have always admired. It aches with loneliness and longing and is short but unforgettable. That the poet is anonymous, adds further to the mystery of the piece written about 1530.
Some of the finest, most moving love poems in the world have grown out of desolation and isolation. And yet, the right love poem is strangely reassuring. Someone else has felt like us and has actually survived to write about it. Suddenly we know we are not alone. Suddenly we can make the love poem our own. Here is a favourite, a simple four line love lyric which I have always admired. It aches with loneliness and longing and is short but unforgettable. That the poet is anonymous, adds further to the mystery of the piece written about 1530.
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