Journal

https://youtu.be/hqp_g1-zkQA

Edmund Spenser wrote Epithalamion for Elizabeth Boyle, his bride to be as wedding gift. It’s an account of their wedding day, from before dawn till late in the night, following the consummation of the marriage.

Consisting of 24 stanzas, corresponding to the 24 hours of Midsummer Day, it also contains 364 lines, matching the days in a year. It follows the cycle of life, from the energy of a young man, through maturity and ending with hopes of the future, which of course ties intimately to the hopeful results of the consummation.

Henry Hallam, writing in the 19th century about the poem says “The English language seems to expand itself with a copiousness unknown before, while he pours forth the varied imagery of this splendid little poem. I do not know any other nuptial song, ancient or modern, of equal beauty. It is an intoxication of ecstasy, ardent, noble, and pure. But it pleased not Heaven that these day-dreams of genius and virtue should be undisturbed” 

In this section of the poem, Spencer acknowledges the existence of the supernatural, the sources of fear, and banishes them one by one. A rather hopeful statement which unfortunately didn’t turn out to be true for the poet, who died, according to Ben Johnson, from want of bread.

Poem 19

Sir Edmund Spenser, (1552/1553 – 1599)

Let no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull teares,
Be heard all night within nor yet without:
Ne let false whispers breeding hidden feares,
Breake gentle sleepe with misconceiued dout.
Let no deluding dreames, nor dreadful sights
Make sudden sad affrights;

Ne let housefyres, nor lightnings helpelesse harmes,
Ne led the Ponke, nor other euill sprights,
Ne let mischiuous witches with theyr charmes,
Ne let hob Goblins, names whose sence we see not,
Fray vs with things that be not.
Let not the shriech Oule, nor the Storke be heard:

Nor the night Rauen that still deadly yels,
Nor damned ghosts cald vp with mighty spels,
Nor griefly vultures make vs once affeard:
Ne let th’unpleasant Quyre of Frogs still croking
Make vs to wish theyr choking.

Let none of these theyr drery accents sing;
Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring.

The Sands of Dee is a poem within a novel, Alton Locke, written by Charles Kingsley in 1849. Like most great rock and roll, he pens the lines to impress a girl, to give words to an air she’s played on the piano. An air without words.

What is an air? To the Irish, an air is a song played on an instrument, wordlessly. As opposed to a tune, which is a melody never intended to carry words, usually for dancing.

Danny Boy, that crusty old piece of cheese, was once a truly heart felt sentiment before it fell into cliche. But it was written to fit an air called the Londonderry Air, among other things. The original words were long lost, likely because the tune was so beautiful that the words became superflous.

The young lady in question plays to the narrator an air which moves him deeply. It helps that she makes his heart, among other body parts, throb. He pledges to put words to the tune at her request.

“Perhaps,” I said, humbly, “that is the only way to write songs–to let some air get possession of ones whole soul, and gradually inspire the words for itself; as the old Hebrew prophets had music played before them, to wake up the prophetic spirit within them.”

As it happened, my attention was caught by hearing two gentlemen close to me discuss a beautiful sketch by Copley Fielding, if I recollect rightly, which hung on the wall–a wild waste of tidal sands, with here and there a line of stake-nets fluttering in the wind–a grey shroud of rain sweeping up from the westward, through which low red cliffs glowed dimly in the rays of the setting sun–a train of horses and cattle splashing slowly through shallow desolate pools and creeks, their wet, red, and black hides glittering in one long line of level light.

They seemed thoroughly conversant with art; and as I listened to their criticisms, I learnt more in five minutes about the characteristics of a really true and good picture, and about the perfection to which our unrivalled English landscape-painters have attained, than I ever did from all the books and criticisms which I had read. One of them had seen the spot represented, at the mouth of the Dee, and began telling wild stories of salmon-fishing, and wildfowl shooting–and then a tale of a girl, who, in bringing her father’s cattle home across the sands, had been caught by a sudden flow of the tide, and found next day a corpse hanging among the stake-nets far below. The tragedy, the art of the picture, the simple, dreary grandeur of the scenery, took possession of me; and I stood gazing a long time, and fancying myself pacing the sands, and wondering whether there were shells upon it–I had often longed for once only in my life to pick up shells–when Lady Ellerton, whom I had not before noticed, woke me from my reverie.

From Alton Locke

Today, the Dee estuary, close to Parkgate is silted up, the docks empty.

Mary’s story is based on truth.

When the book was written, cattle were grazed along the estuary, which was essentially marshland. Mary was sent to bring the cattle back before the tide came in. She tarried, and the sands which she walked along were swallowed up by the sea, taking her as well.

According to legend, on misty evenings, people could still hear her calling the cattle, and the cattle calling out in reply. And then silence.

The Sands of Dee (from Alton Locke)

By Charles Kingsley (1819–1875)

‘O MARY, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o’ Dee;’
The western wind was wild and dank wi’ foam,
And all alone went she.

The creeping tide came up along the sand,
And o’er and o’er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see;
The blinding mist came down and hid the land—
And never home came she.

‘Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair—
A tress o’ golden hair,
O’ drownèd maiden’s hair,
Above the nets at sea?
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair,
Among the stakes on Dee.’

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel, crawling foam,
The cruel, hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea;
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,
Across the sands o’ Dee.

https://youtu.be/oH1GjIKZV_Q

Kipling included this little poem in his book Traffics & Discoveries in 1904. Some say it’s a children’t poem, an allegory. The Kipling society folks seem to think it’s about naval warfare. A political tale.

I love the imagery, the tone. In a few short lines, Kipling creates an impossible world, where witches and little blue devils can speak to one another, albeit in riddles that only they seem to understand.

The Egg Shell

By Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

The wind took off with the sunset—
The fog came up with the tide,
When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell
With a little Blue Devil inside.
“Sink,” she said, “or swim,” she said,
“It’s all you will get from me.
And that is the finish of him!” she said,
And the Egg-shell went to sea.

The wind fell dead with the midnight—
The fog shut down like a sheet,
When the Witch of the North heard the Egg-shell
Feeling by hand for a fleet.
“Get!” she said, “or you’re gone,” she said,
But the little Blue Devil said “No!”
“The sights are just coming on,” he said,
And he let the Whitehead go.

The wind got up with the morning—
The fog blew off with the rain,
When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
And the little Blue Devil again.
“Did you swim?” she said. “Did you sink?” she said,
And the little Blue Devil replied:
“For myself I swam, but I think,” he said,
“There’s somebody sinking outside.”

https://youtu.be/39Jp_0i1i_A

Something is happening in The Listeners, but we never know what.

We know it’s about keeping promises, keeping your word, even if there’s nobody there, nobody living at least to know that you did. Are the listeners the living or the dead? Is the traveller in fact the dead one, returning once more to his home as he’d promised?

We never get to know the details, and that’s part of the magic, along with the tone and atmosphere de la Mare creates in his imagery. But in the end we’re faced with what T.S. Eliot described when he read this poem, ‘an inexplicable mystery’.

The Listeners

By Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) 

https://youtu.be/XNEQTOgKYE8

MOSTLY FORGOTTEN TODAY, James Russell Lowell lived and breathed New England. Much as Mark Twain became the voice and accent of the midwest – the frontier at the time, Lowell became the archetype of the Yankee dialect. And in the process, helped define the mindset of the region.

Born and living mainly his whole life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he was one of the most influential figures in American literature, as well as political thought of the era. But like many others whose work doesn’t translate well to the modern era, he’s become increasingly forgotten.

From the beginning he wanted to be a poet, but his practical nature drove him to take up the law as a profession. But the artistic streak was too strong, and he abandoned his practice to live as a writer, a helluva gamble at the time.

His career mainly floundered, his poetry considered unremarkable even by his own admission, until he struck gold with the publication of The Biglow Papers, where he took on a Yankee persona and wrote under a pseudonym. In doing this he dispensed of pretense and expressed himself fully. And ironically finally found his success.

Today if you encounter Lowell at all, it’s likely through this poem, one of the best to put into words the mystery and magic of this enchanted time of night.

Midnight

by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

The moon shines white and silent
On the mist, which, like a tide
Of some enchanted ocean,
O’er the wide marsh doth glide,
Spreading its ghost-like billows
Silently far and wide.

A vague and starry magic
Makes all things mysteries,
And lures the earth’s dumb spirit
Up to the longing skies:
I seem to hear dim whispers,
And tremulous replies.

The fireflies o’er the meadow
In pulses come and go;
The elm-trees’ heavy shadow
Weighs on the grass below;
And faintly from the distance
The dreaming cock doth crow.

All things look strange and mystic,
The very bushes swell
And take wild shapes and motions,
As if beneath a spell;
They seem not the same lilacs
From childhood known so well.

The snow of deepest silence
O’er everything doth fall,
So beautiful and quiet,
And yet so like a pall;
As if all life were ended,
And rest were come to all.

O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be,
And give it some faint glimpses
Of immortality!

https://youtu.be/O59iDcicIs0

IN THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, renowned dramatist, poet and favorite of the royal court composed a series of masques for the court’s entertainment. A masque consisted of music, dance and acting, performed in a private setting featuring elaborate costumes, professional actors and elaborate stage design. The stage and costumes were often designed by renowned architects, in this case it was Inigo Jones.

For the Masque of Queens, Johnson drew heavily upon King James’  Daemonologie, which spoke of the practices, identification and prosecution of witches. Much of what we believe, what we have come to think of when we hear the word witch draws from this source, which influenced others who have reinforced the stereotypes, such as the witches of Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play.

The Witches’ Song, from Masque of Queens

Ben Johnson (1572-1637)

1 WITCH.

“I HAVE been all day looking after
A raven feeding upon a quarter:
And, soone as she turn’d her beak to the south,
I snatch’d this morsell out of her mouth.”

2 WITCH.

“I have beene gathering wolves haires,
The madd dogges foames, and adders eares;
The spurging of a dead man’s eyes:
And all since the evening starre did rise.”

3 WITCH.

“I last night lay all alone
O’ the ground, to heare the mandrake grone;
And pluckt him up, though he grew full low:
And, as I had done, the cocke did crow.”

4 WITCH.

“And I ha’ beene chusing out this scull
From charnell houses that were full;
From private grots, and publike pits:
And frighted a sexton out of his wits.”

5 WITCH.

“Under a cradle I did crepe
By day; and, when the childe was a-sleepe
At night, I suck’d the breath; and rose,
And pluck’d the nodding nurse by the nose.

6 WITCH.

“I had a dagger: what did I with that?
Killed an infant to have his fat.
A piper it got at a church-ale.
I bade him again blow wind i’ the taile.”

7 WITCH.

“A murderer yonder was hung in chaines;
The sunne and the wind had shrunke his veins:
I bit off a sinew; I clipp’d his haire;
I brought off his ragges, that danc’d i’ the ayre.”

8 WITCH.

“The scrich-owles egges and the feathers blacke,
The bloud of the frogge, and the bone in his backe
I have been getting; and made of his skin
A purset, to keepe Sir Cranion in.”

9 WITCH.

“And I ha’ beene plucking (plants among)
Hemlock, henbane, adders-tongue,
Night-shade, moone-wort, libbards-bane;
And twise by the dogges was like to be tane.”

10 WITCH.

“I from the jaw’s of a gardiner’s bitch
Did snatch these bones, and then leap’d the ditch:
Yet went I back to the house againe,
Kill’d the blacke cat, and here is the braine.”

11 WITCH.

“I went to the toad, breedes under the wall,
I charmed him out, and he came at my call;
I scratch’d out the eyes of the owle before;
I tore the batts wing: what would you have more?”

DAME.

“Yes: I have brought, to helpe your vows,
Horned poppie, cypresse boughes,
The fig-tree wild, that grows on tombes,
And juice, that from the larch-tree comes,
The basiliskes bloud, and the vipers skin:–
And now our orgies let’s begin.”