Sunday, August 4, 2013

Poem

Dear my friend and fellow student, I would lean my spirit o'er you!
Down the purple of this chamber, tears should scarcely run at will.
I am humbled who was humble. Friend, -- I bow my head before you.
You should lead me to my peasants, -- but their faces are too still. 
There's a lady -- an earl's daughter, -- she is proud and she is noble,
And she treads the crimson carpet, and she breathes the perfumed air,
And a kingly blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble,
And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair. 
She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers,
She has farms and she has manors, she can threaten and command,
And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her acres,
As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of the land. 
There are none of England's daughters who can show a prouder presence;
Upon princely suitors praying, she has looked in her disdain.
She was sprung of English nobles, I was born of English peasants;
What was I that I should love her -- save for competence to pain?
That is the beginning of Lady Geraldine's Courtship, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and you can tell, because you are clever, it sounds a lot like the Raven. I didn't want to say the name first because you'd be put off immediately.

Poe said it was the basis for the Raven. Admired it, raved about it, *ducks* in fact, copied it, and thankfully kept his a lot shorter.

lines 1-100 here, if you care to follow, and it goes on. And by on, I mean on and on, takes 4 more pages to line 412.
Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass, bareheaded, with the flowing
Of the virginal white vesture gathered closely to her throat, --
And the golden ringlets in her neck just quickened by her going,
And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if to float, -- 
With a branch of dewy maple, which her right hand held above her,
And which trembled a green shadow in betwixt her and the skies,
As she turned her face in going, thus, she drew me on to love her,
And to worship the divineness of the smile hid in her eyes.
Goodness. It is the sort of thing that once you get going it becomes hard to stop, the drumbeat keeps drumming and your story keeps telling itself. Poe said he liked the internal rhymes and the alliteration. That's what Wikipedia says Poe said.

Let's skip to somewhere in the 200's to see what Lady Geraldine gets up to. Because this is important! It is the person Flip Wilson based his character on.

Oops. Picked one where he's talking about himself, the poet. So a different one.
Oh, to see or hear her singing! scarce I know which is divinest --
For her looks sing too -- she modulates her gestures on the tune;
And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and when the notes are finest
'Tis the eyes that shoot out vocal light and seem to sell them on. 
Then we talked -- oh, how we talked! her voice, so cadenced in the talking,
Made another singing -- of the soul! a music without bars;
While the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming round where we were walking,
Brought interposition worthy-sweet, -- as skies about the stars.
Dreamy.

Let's skip again to something in the 300's
I plucked up her social fictions, bloody-rooted though leaf-verdant, --
Trod them down with words of shaming, -- all the purple and the gold,
All the 'landed stakes' and lordships, all, that spirits pure and ardent
Are cast out of love and honour because chancing not to hold. 
'For myself I do not argue,' said I, 'though I love you, madam,
But for better souls that nearer to the height of yours have trod;
And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam,
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.
Wow. I can see why Poe was impressed. But honestly, this is too many words for me, I can't hold it.

But what happens? Skip to the end.
Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,
While the silver tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks;
Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him,
'Bertram, if I say I love thee,. . . 'tis the vision only speaks.' 
Softened, quickened to adore her, on his knee he fell before her --
And she whispered low in triumph, 'It shall be as I have sworn!
Very rich is he in virtues, -- very noble -- noble, certes;
And I shall not blush in knowing that men call him lowly born.'
He proposes, she accepts. Aaaah. I am deeply moved. Even skimming it, that's how shallow I am. I only wanted to know about it not know all about it inside and out.

18 comments:

deborah said...

"It is the person Flip Wilson based his character on."

A little known fact is that Ramona Geraldine Quimby was also her namesake.

William said...

Does anyone know anything of the nature of the sex life of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett? I wonder if she compensated for her debilities by being a whizz at oral sex.

edutcher said...

Your inner Alt calls you occasionally, doesn't it?

TTBurnett said...

May I make one little technical quibble?
I love the idea of poetry posts. Or quoting literature of any kind at length for a purpose.
The problem here is the eye-glazingly small sans-serif type this is displayed in. I'm looking at it on a 17" MacBook Pro, and while it's not jagged, it's too damn tiny.
How about something like Times New Roman in a legitimate 10 or 12-point size to make it look more like a book?

rhhardin said...

The Stuffed Owl has the definitive treatment of Poe.

virgil xenophon said...

@edutcher

LOL!! My very first thought too!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

deborah said...

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.
-Alexander Pope

caplight45 said...

There once was a man from Nantucket...

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

betwixt

I need to figure out a way to use that word and not have anyone look at me like I'm nuts.

deborah said...

I haven't read much Robert Browning, but a favorite line, from My Last Duchess:

Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat

deborah said...

Remember Wine Slob? He could actually write good limericks.

caplight45 said...

I had an exceptionally good professor for the only college course I ever had for the study of poetry (English). His passion for his field was motivating but unless I'm being led by the hand through it I just don't find it readable.

Chip Ahoy said...

TTBurnett,

Does the typeface in this post display differently for you than other posts?

This is how the post looks to me. I am using Air 13" Safari

[This post is portions copy/pasted into a new document as plain text with no formatting. Then copy/pasted again into blogger using Blogger edit "default" which displays to me as NYT within the editor but publishes according to template. ]

We discussed the typeface at length for posts and for links. Lem has gone into the template and adjusted it manually so that links show up better.

The newly formatted pasted form displayed here is actually larger than the source. The quote lines are shortened creating line breaks where they do not exist in the original. It's kind of cool the way it breaks it because it fits the rhythm of the poem.

Somebody else mentioned tiny typeface and I am not getting that. The size is no smaller than any other site I'm reading, that is, I don't have to change anything to read this site, and the 13" is too small for a lot of the things I'm doing.

Does the typeface on the post display for you smaller than the typeface in these comments?

Chip Ahoy said...

edutcher, virgil xenophon, yes.

I always did make a habit of sitting next to who I thought was the smartest girl in the class, and it always did rub off. Credit where it is due. I copy what I think is best.

rcocean said...

So is this a 19th century Althouse Meade thing?

deborah said...

rc, I'm thinking it's a 19th century Althouse/commentariat thing lol, but would Chip be so cheeky? Oh, me.

Thanks for introducing me to Geraline, Chip :)

Mitch H. said...

I invite you, Mister Bertram, to no scene for worldly speeches --
Sir, I scarce should dare -- but only where God asked the thrushes first --
And if you will sing beside them, in the covert of my beeches,
I will thank you for the woodlands, . . . for the human world, at worst.'


That sounds suspiciously like an entendre, and a filthy one at that.

Or at times I read there, hoarsely, some new poem of my making:
Poets ever fail in reading their own verses to their worth, --
For the echo in you breaks upon the words which you are speaking,
And the chariot-wheels jar in the gate through which you drive them forth.


That's true, I've had that problem reading my work aloud. Doesn't help that my ear for meter is almost non-existent.

Interesting, if a little treacly. I only know Elizabeth Barrett Browning from the Sonnets from the Portuguese, it's a little odd to be reading her in something a little less rigidly formated. It's too damn long, though. Reads a bit like a romance novel in verse, and not a clever one at that.

Said he -- 'I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river,
Flowing ever in a shadow greenly onward to the sea!


River-meeting-sea imagery always reminds me of "Garden of Proserpine":

That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.


Swinburne has too much of the mad pagan, but Barrett Browning too little, I think.