Awakenings
John Donne (1572–1613) lived about the same time as Shakespeare (1564–1616). His poems shake up the abstract conventions of Elizabethan love poetry by using striking images from real life (such as a flea or a compass or, as here, waking up in bed with one’s lover) to anchor poems about universal themes in particular details.
Good morrow = Good morning (a salutation).
Declining west = During the Dark Ages, the Byzantine, or eastern Roman Empire, was thought to be the center of a world that became more barbaric the farther west you went.
Mixed equally = A balance of the “bodily humors” was considered essential to life in classical medicine.
None can die = Elizabethans often punned to “die” to mean both death and sexual climax. Here, the arousal will go on forever.
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A Dark and Stormy Night
The reclusive Emily Dickinson imagines this night us a storm at sea outside her room, and what it would be like to share her room with a lover. Within the safe Edenic harbor of passionate love, wind and thunder become oddly comforting.
Luxury = Lust and excess.
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“WILD NIGHTS—WILD NIGHTS!”
Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile — the Winds —
To a Heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden—
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight—
In Thee!
MEETING AND PASSING
Robert Frost
As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less than two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met, and you what I had passed.
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INTRODUCTIONS
When you finally meet the one you love, nothing is ever quite the same afterward. The next two poems are about beginnings that open up new worlds through the experience of a kindred soul.
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Love at First Sight
In this sonnet, the taciturn Yankee Robert Frost celebrates the wordless connection of two people falling in love. Beneath the polite conversation of two strangers, two souls encounter each other and begin to merge.
Decimal = The tip of her parasol makes a dotlike indentation in the dust underfoot, becoming like the decimal point in the sum of two people starting to become one. Here, 1 + 1 adds up to about 1.5.
Bush = Suggesting the shrub from which God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, and of Euonymus alatus, or burning bush, a leafy decorative shrub introduced to Virginia that now grows wild.
Cloud = Suggesting William Wordsworth’s poem, “I Wander’d Lonely as a Cloud.”
Jewel weed = The seed pods of jewel weed burst open explosively when touched.
Monarchs = Butterflies.
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THE GREETING
R. H. W. Dillard
Hello. It is like an echo
Of something I have always known:
From a bush (where you are burning),
From a cloud (you are alone),
The stream’s dry whisper, river’s slide,
Stone, thistle, the startling leap
Of a jewel weed. I always know the voice.
It is one day hers; one day, his.
Today it is yours.
Hello. And the leaves lapse
Into applause, a flight of monarchs
Dizzies and stills, the high stone arch
Coos with a flutter of doves.
It is like a breeze I have always felt,
Billowing out the silent curtains,
Bumping the pictures on the walls.
One day it is a warm breeze; one day, cold.
Today it is you.
Hello. It is like the face
Of someone I have always known:
The smile of recognition, frown of fear,
Snarl that splits it like a shell,
Blank face of the dreamer, silent dream.
I have always known the dream,
How it lights and flares, how it fades.
It is one day mine; one day, yours.
It is today.
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You Had Me at “Hello”
Where falling in love reminded the lover of waking up in “The Good Morrow” (page 22), in R. H. W. Dillard’s poem it is like entering a dream over and over. The imagery is that of the forests and fields of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.
Today = Which is more real, the dream or the dreaming? The poet wonders how we can hold on to either.
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SONG OR POEM?
Poets often call their poems “songs,” and songwriters often call themselves “poets.” Maybe the difference is that a poem must generate its own music, which it does by drawing on traditional forms that readers carry in their heads or on the intrinsic rhythm of the words. A good song, on the other hand, comes across most strongly when helped by melody and instrumental accompaniment, with changes in pitch and phrasing providing another “vocabulary.” Consider the work of the next two songwriters.
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THE LIGHT
Common
I never knew a luh, luh-luh, a love like this
Gotta be somethin for me to write this
Queen, I ain’t seen you in a minute
Wrote this letter, and finally decide to send it
Signed sealed delivered for us to grow together
Love has no limit, let’s spend it slow forever
I know your heart is weathered by what studs did to you
I ain’t gon’ assault em cause I probably did it too
Because of you, feelings I handle with care
Some niggaz recognize the light but they can’t handle the glare
You know I ain’t the type to walk around with matchin shirts
If relationship is effort I will match your work
I wanna be the one to make you happiest, it hurts you the most
They say the end is near, it’s important that we close …
to the most, high
Regardless of what happen on him let’s rely
There are times … when you’ll need someone …
I will be by your side …
There is a light, that shines,
Special for you, and me …
Yo, yo, check it
It’s important, we communicate
And tune the fate of this union, to the right pitch
I never call you my bitch or even my boo
There’s so much in a name and so much more in you
Few understand the union of woman and man
And sex and a tingle is where they assume that it land
But that’s fly by night for you and the sky I write
For in these cold Chi night’s moon, you my light
If heaven had a height, you would be that tall
Ghetto to coffee shop, through you I see that all
Let’s stick to understandin and we won’t fall
For better or worse times, I hope to me you call
So I pray everyday more than anything
Friends will stay as we begin to lay
This foundation for a family — love ain’t simple
Why can’t it be anything worth having you work at annually
Granted we known each other for some time
It don’t take a whole day to recognize sunshine
There are times … when you’ll need someone …
I will be by your side, oh darling
There is a light, that shines,
Special for you, and me …
Yeah … yo, yo, check it
It’s kinda fresh you listen to more than hip-hop
And I can catch you in the mix from beauty to thrift shop
Plus you ship hop when it’s time to, thinkin you fresh
Suggestin beats I should rhyme to
At times when I’m lost I try to find you
You know to give me space when it’s time to
My heart’s dictionary defines you, it’s love and happiness
Truthfully it’s hard tryin to practice abstinence
The time we committed love it was real good
Had to be for me to arrive and it still feel good
I know the sex ain’t gon’ keep you, but as my equal
It’s how I must treat you
As my reflection in light I’ma lead you
And whatever’s right, I’ma feed you
Digga-da, digga-da, digga-da, digga-digga-da-da
Yo I tell you the rest when I see you, peace
There are times … when you’ll need someone …
I will be by your side …
There is a light, that shines,
Special for you, and me …
Take my chances … before they pass …
pass me by, oh darling …
You need to look at the other side …
You’ll agree …
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Rhythms of Rap
Rap and hip-hop music sometimes blur the line between song and poem further, because they’re often not melodious. Still, the interplay between the rhythmic beats laid down by the deejay at his turntable and cadences of the emcee with his rap is what makes it fun to listen to. This love lyric by the rapper Common (Lonnie Rashied Lynn) will come across aloud most effectively if you read it and imagine a hip-hop beat pulsing away in the background in counterpoint to the rhymes and half-rhymes.
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Ship hop = Hop between relationships.
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Words that Sing
Walt Whitman called these lines part of a very long “song,” even though the words didn’t rhyme and it wasn’t set to music. For Whitman, the term had more to do with an exultant musical attitude than with form—at least not poetic form.
Womanly life = Whitman imagines a lonely young woman watching a crowd of young men skinny-dipping in a river or lake.
Unseen hand = A strong current of eroticism runs in these waters, as it does in the poet, who was homosexual. Her hand becomes his own in this song of himself.
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“THE TWENTY-NINTH BATHER” FROM SONG OF MYSELF
Walt Whitman
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.
She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.
Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.
Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.
Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.
The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair,
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.
An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,
It descended trembling from their temples and ribs.
The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.
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VISIONS OF YOU
Distance and death may keep lovers physically apart, but memories keep them close. Then, in that instant when something sparks a memory and the lovers greet each other again, it’s as if time and distance go away, and the vision becomes real.
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American Romantic
Emerson is best known as an essayist and philosopher who helped define what it meant to be an American writer. In his poems, he often puts aside that heavy intellectual lifting and focuses on details of nature and moments of perception that connect him to the world.
Evening star = The planet Venus, associated with the Roman goddess of love.
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THINE EYES STILL SHINED
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thine eyes still shined for me, though far
I lonely roved the land or sea:
As I behold yon evening star,
Which yet beholds not me.
This morn I climbed the misty hill
And roamed the pastures through;
How danced thy form before my path
Amidst the deep-eyed dew!
When the redbird spread his sable wing,
And showed his side of flame;
When the rosebud ripened to the rose,
In both I read thy name.
SURPRISED BY JOY
William Wordsworth
Surprised by joy — impatient as the wind
I turned to share the transport—O! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind —
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?—That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
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Double Take
A poet turns to point something out to someone he loves, and all of a sudden it is “now,” not “then.” In this sonnet, the momentary return of a lost love shocks William Wordsworth into recognizing that, caught up in the everyday business of living, he has put aside something he thought he’d never forget.
Tomb = Wordsworth’s three-year-old daughter Catharine died in 1812. This poem, which her spirit “suggested” to him, was published in 1815.
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CONNECTIONS
Saying hello to love means plugging into the electrical grid of the world and saying hello to the powerful currents of affection and memory that run through it. “Only Connect,” the novelist E. M. Forster wrote, a motto that neatly sums up the strange forces of the human heart and soul that inspire love poetry and art.
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Procreationism
In this poem, the poet acts as a medium, channeling the spirit of love. Love, it turns out, is something of a philosopher, and love’s philosophy of procreationism is fairly straightforward: Let’s you and me get together.
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LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the wo
rld is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle —
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain’d its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moon beams kiss the sea —
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
POEM
Seamus Heaney
(for Marie)
Love, I shall perfect for you the child
Who diligently potters in my brain
Digging with heavy spade till sods were piled
Or puddling through muck in a deep drain.
Yearly I would sow my yard-long garden.
I’d strip a layer of sods to build the wall
That was to keep out sow and pecking hen.
Yearly, admitting these, the sods would fall.
Or in the sucking clabber I would splash
Delightedly and dam the flowing drain
But always my bastions of clay and mush
Would burst before the rising autumn rain.
Love, you shall perfect for me this child
Whose small imperfect limits would keep breaking:
Within new limits now, arrange the world
And square the circle: four walls and a ring.
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Child’s Play
“When I was a child,” Saint Paul wrote to the Christians of Corinth, “I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” For some people, though, putting away childish things is not the mark of adulthood. That seems to be the case for Seamus Heaney, for whom the spirit of that child informs the married man’s love.
Love Poetry Out Loud Page 3