It's April

I know--April is two-thirds gone already, but as the old cliche goes--better late than never.  Following are several poems about April, and not all agree about April.  That's what makes poetry so interesting, for me anyway.

While this first poem doesn't specially refer to April, in the Midwest, where I grew up, April would seem to be the best fit.  A frost in March wouldn't really be considered a late frost, while one in May is extremely unlikely.  Moreover, the blossoming appears to be more like April, which seems, to me anyway, to be set between the "orchard bare" and the "orchard green."   But, I'm sure there will be those who disagree with my weather observations.

Frost here uses his name to signify something dangerous, which he has done several times in the past in a number of poems.  Other writers have also suggested that reading can be dangerous to one's ideas or one's perspective.


A Peril of Hope

It is right in there

Betwixt and between

The orchard bare

And the orchard green,

When the boughs are right

In a flowery burst

Of pink and white,

That we fear the worst.

For there's not a clime

But at any cost

Will take that time

For a night of frost.
-- Robert Frost --




The following opening lines to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales provides a different feeling about April--partly I think as a reaction to the escape from winter, as well as recognition of the beauties of Spring.


Prologue to Canterbury Tales

WHANNE that April with his shoures sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veine in swiche licour,
Of whiche vertue engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eke with his sote brethe
Enspired hath in every holt and hethe
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foules maken melodie,
That slepen alle night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in hir corages;
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,

 -- Geoffrey Chaucer --
 from The Canterbury Tales


For those who don't have a glossary for Middle English handy:

  When April's gentle rains have pierced the drought
Of March right to the root, and bathed each sprout
Through every vein with liquid of such power
It brings forth the engendering of the flower;  
When Zephyrus too with his sweet breath has blown             5
Through every field and forest, urging on
The tender shoots, and there's a youthful sun,
His second half course through the Ram now run,
And little birds are making melody
And sleep all night, eyes open as can be                     10
(So Nature pricks them in each little heart),
On pilgrimage then folks desire to start.






I think the opening lines of this poem plays on Chaucer's opening lines.  Of course, the difference can be seen as due primarily to the differing locations for each poem:  Chaucer's set in England, "Now that Aprils' here,"  while Eliot's is set in a wasteland.  It's sort of related to Frost's poem, in that both speak of thwarted hope. 




The Wasteland, first stanza

  April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

-- T. S. Eliot --
from The Wasteland



Here's another view of April, very different than that of Eliot.  It's very simple and straightforward and echoes Chaucer's "April with his shoures sote ." 

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night--

And I love the rain.

-- Langston Hughes --



I can't leave out my favorite haiku, even though I've posted it several times already.

April's air stirs in
Willow-leaves.  .  .  a butterfly
Floats and balances.
          -- Basho  --

T. S. Eliot: Sept. 26, 1888--Jan. 4, 1965

I realize that it's a bit early for T. S. Eliot's "The Journey of the Magi," but the Magi were probably on their journey by the time September rolled around. This is, of course, a slightly different version of the arduous journey undertaken by the Magi. Normally we don't see them until Christmas Eve when they appear in their glorious robes and crowns, presenting gifts to the Christ child. Eliot's poem, on the contrary, is a narrative by one of them, and frankly, he sounds much like any traveler who's had the misfortune of traveling too long in strange lands, especially if it isn't on a guided tour.



In the first part, we hear complaints that have been made by many travelers: miserable weather, poor or inadequate transportation, unfriendly local inhabitants, and exorbitant prices. All this made them homesick and wishing they had never left.


The Journey of the Magi

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.



In the second part, as they draw close to their destination, they see signs but don't realize the significance of them, for only those who came after would recognize them. The three trees on the hill suggest the three crosses of the Crucifixion set against a darkening sky at Calvary. The while horse was an early symbol for the second coming of Christ at the end of all days for, according to the Book of Revelation, Christ will appear riding a white horse. At the inn, they find some people dicing for pieces of silver, an echo, perhaps, not only of the price Judas received for his betrayal, but also of the soldiers dicing for Christ's robe at the foot of the Cross.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.



The narrator now sums it all up by saying he would do it again, but what they gained from it was not what they expected. They were present at the "Birth," but it was a strange birth for it also meant death for their religious traditions, for their old ways. They returned but they had changed for they were "no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,/ With an alien people clutching their gods." In truth, he felt that he "should be glad of another death."



All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.




The last few lines reminds me of another poem, one by Oscar Wilde:


Santa Decca

The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring
To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!
Demeter's child no more hath tithe of sheaves,
And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,
For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning
By secret glade and devious haunt is o'er:
Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;
Great Pan is dead, and Mary's son is King.
And yet--perchance in this sea-tranced isle,
Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,
Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.
Ah Love! if such there be, then it were well
For us to fly his anger; nay, but see
The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.



I don't think Eliot would agree with Wilde's last six lines. I suspect that he would say the victory of Mary's son was complete . . . but then again, Eliot is a poet.

T. S. Eliot: September 26, 1888--January 4, 1965

T. S. Eliot--poet, playwright, and critic. He is a favorite of mine, and "The Hollow Men" is one of my favorite poems by him. At present, it's hard to see what Eliot's legacy will be, assuming that he isn't forgotten as the decades pass. Will his poetry be remembered and read by both the public and critics, or will he be read mostly by critics and English majors in class? Or perhaps, he will be remembered only by critics who will discuss his criticism in the future, and his poetry will be ignored, except perhaps as examples of poetry from the first half of the 20th century?

My first encounter with Eliot was at an early age, much too young to really appreciate the poem. In fact, it wasn't the poem but only the last stanza that I read, and I didn't know where it came from until years later. It was used as an epigraph for a SF short story, whose title and author I have long since forgotten. It is the epigraph, not the story, that has stayed with me through the decades.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

I read it in the '50s when the Cold War was at its hottest, and nuclear annihilation was one of the most common themes in SF (commonly dismissed as "escapist fiction"). This suggested another way for the world to end, one that was directly contradictory to the prevailing fears of the time--"Not with a bang but a whimper." I found this intriguing, and perhaps hopeful? It was not until perhaps the early '60s in an English Lit class when I discovered the source of the epigraph.


The poem itself has two epigraphs. One, "Mistah Kurtz--he dead" is from Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. It occurs near the end of the novel, shortly after Kurtz has been taken aboard the river boat that has come upstream to investigate strange and frightening rumors that have circulated about his methods. Kurtz is at the "heart of darkness" or perhaps he himself may be the heart of darkness. Kurtz may have recognized this on his deathbed, when he utters his last words--"The horror...the horror."


Francis Ford Coppola, the director of Apocalypse Now, a film inspired? by Conrad's Heart of Darkness, recognizes the relationship between Eliot's poetry and Conrad's novel. Where Eliot echoes Conrad with the epigraph from Heart of Darkness, Coppola reverses the relationship when he has Kurtz quote several lines from Eliot's poetry in his conversations with Willard, the officer who has come to "terminate him with extreme prejudice."

I think Eliot wishes to tie in his formulation of the death of western civilization during the horrors of World War I with Kurtz, a highly civilized man and a paragon of humanitarian motives, who becomes far more savage than the "savages" he is supposed to be bringing the benefits of civilization to.

The second epigraph, "A penny for the Old Guy," comes from the traditions surrounding Guy Fawkes Day. English children (perhaps this tradition now has passed into oblivion) go about with straw effigies of the 17th century traitor Guy Fawkes and ask for pennies for fireworks which will be set off as the effigy is later hung and burned. Perhaps this is Eliot's brief commentary on the strange relationship between the innocence of children and the savagery of "civilized" law.

THE HOLLOW MEN

Mistah Kurtz--he dead

A penny for the Old Guy

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Any thoughts? Which would be worse--the world ending in a bang or a whimper?

Poets and fogs and cats

I had decided that I would finally get to the collection of poetry of T. S. Eliot this year. I had dipped into the text, _The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909 -1950_ a number of times for specific poems and plays, but there was still much in there that I hadn't read.

Being a rather simple sort, I started with the first poem--"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I had read this one before, numerous times, so it was settling back for a conversation with a old friend.

"Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table:
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
........

He's on a quest, and the third line hints that his imagery might be not what one usually gets.


Of course, when I encountered the following stanza, I had to stop and think and smile. Eliot's use of cat imagery to describe the fog seems so apt. I know he's depicting the fog, but the cat comes through so strongly to me that I picture the narrator encountering a cat on his walk.


The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.


This of course brings up another poem, one by Carl Sandburg, which is shorter but just as potent in portraying a cat.


Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.


I guess Sandburg's would qualify more as a short glimpse of one, rather than any lengthy observation, such as Eliot's would suggest. This is a different cat, one on the move, and not one that settles down as Eliot's cat did. I guess that would explain why Eliot goes into more detail than Sandburg did. Perhaps Chicago fogs move more quickly than London fogs.


"And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep."

and Sandburg's

"and then moves on."


I did eventually finish "The Love Song..." that evening, but it took longer than I expected. But, no problem, that's what poems are for, I think.