I felt an overwhelming moment of grief...just now.
In school she was my little sister as we repelled 150 feet down the Welsh cliffs.She was fearless...and petite with a twinkle in her mischievous eye that spoke volumes.
I have a photograph...that's all that's left for me.
exuse me for a moment...
What a perfect segue for an ESt.VM poem of sadness. She perfected, I think, the eulogy for those who died too young. The five-part one was written, I thought, for Elinor Wylie, though I can't find confirmation online and can't remember where I learned it.
Panzade, your friend looks beautiful still. What a shame she died so young. Whenever someone is remembered, they do live on. I hope you like the last two lines of this poem, they are some of my favorites.
Elegy Before Death.
There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringas
Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;
Still will the tamaracks be raining
After the rain has ceased, and still
Will there be robins in the stubble,
Brown sheep upon the warm green hill.
Spring will not ail nor autumn falter;
Nothing will know that you are gone,
Saving alone some sullen plough-land
None but yourself sets foot upon;
Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed
Nothing will know that you are dead,--
These, and perhaps a useless wagon
Standing beside some tumbled shed.
Oh, there will pass with your great passing
Little of beauty not your own,--
Only the light from common water,
Only the grace from simple stone!
Quote:
Here's another... much longer. It says to D.C. but I could have sworn this was written to Wylie.
MEMORIAL TO D.C.
(Vassar College, 1918)
O, loveliest throat of all sweet throats,
Where now no more the music is,
With hands that wrote you little notes
I write you little elegies!
I
EPITAPH
Heap not on this mound
Roses that she loved so well:
Why bewilder her with roses,
That she cannot see or smell?
She is happy where she lies
With the dust upon her eyes.
II
PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE
Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be:
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,--Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee:
Say to her, "My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here."
III
CHORUS
Give away her gowns,
Give away her shoes;
She has no more use
For her fragrant gowns;
Take them all down,
Blue, green, blue,
Lilac, pink, blue,
From their padded hangers;
She will dance no more
In her narrow shoes;
Sweep her narrow shoes
From the closet floor.
IV
DIRGE
Boys and girls that held her dear,
Do your weeping now;
All you loved of her lies here.
Brought to earth the arrogant brow,
And the withering tongue
Chastened; do your weeping now.
Sing whatever songs are sung,
Wind whatever wreath,
For a playmate perished young,
For a spirit spent in death.
Boys and girls that held her dear,
All you loved of her lies here.
V
ELEGY
Let them bury your big eyes
In the secret earth securely,
Your thin fingers, and your fair,
Soft, indefinite-colored hair,--
All of these in some way, surely,
From the secret earth shall rise;
Not for these I sit and stare,
Broken and bereft completely;
Your young flesh that sat so neatly
On your little bones will sweetly
Blossom in the air.
But your voice,--never the rushing
Of a river underground,
Not the rising of the wind
In the trees before the rain,
Not the woodcock's watery call,
Not the note the white-throat utters,
Not the feet of children pushing
Yellow leaves along the gutters
In the blue and bitter fall,
Shall content my musing mind
For the beauty of that sound
That in no new way at all
Ever will be heard again.
Sweetly through the sappy stalk
Of the vigorous weed,
Holding all it held before,
Cherished by the faithful sun,
On and on eternally
Shall your altered fluid run,
Bud and bloom and go to seed;
But your singing days are done;
But the music of your talk
Never shall the chemistry
Of the secret earth restore.
All your lovely words are spoken.
Once the ivory box is broken,
Beats the golden bird no more.
Wonderful, Piffka, those poems were beautiful (despite being obvious downers.) She perfected it indeed.
I think during her life she was asked to write nearly every eulogy that was offered/ needed by her school, Vassar.
My favorite two sad poems that she wrote are probably "
If Still Your Orchards Bear" and "Memories of Cape Cod"**. Btw, the poem you posted (by Ted Hughes, I think, you didn't say, so I looked it up) is described as not being available online
here. Is that something that you would want to add to the portal, d'ya know?
**from
a post of mine in December 2002
Quote:This is one of my favorite poems for things that have gone by... was read by Caroline for her mother, Jacqueline K. Onassis at Arlington.
Memory of Cape Cod
The wind in the ash-tree sounds like surf on the shore at Truro.
I will shut my eyes . . . hush, be still with your silly bleating,
sheep on Shillingstone Hill . . .
They said: Come along! They said: Leave your pebbles on the sand and come along, it's long after sunset!
The mosquitoes will be thick in the pine-woods along by Long Nook, the wind's
died down!
They said: Leave your pebbles on the sand, and your shells, too, and come along, we'll find you another beach like the beach at Truro.
Let me listen to wind in the ash . . . it sounds like surf on the
shore.
A Dirge
Algernon Charles Swinburne
A bell tolls on in my heart
As though in my ears a knell
Had ceased for awhile to swell,
But the sense of it would not part
From the spirit that bears its part
In the chime of the soundless bell.
Ah, dear dead singer of sorrow,
The burden is now not thine
That grief bade sound for a sign
Through the songs of the night whose morrow
Has risen, and I may not borrow
A beam from its radiant shrine.
The burden has dropped from thee
That grief on thy life bound fast;
The winter is over and past
Whose end thou wast fain to see.
Shall sorrow not comfort me
That is thine no longer---at last?
Good day, good night, and good morrow,
Men living and mourning say.
For thee we could only pray
That night of the day might borrow
Such comfort as dreams lend sorrow:
Death gives thee at last good day.
Poetry is good for commemorating the dead, isn't it?
It sure is Piffka. It allows one to focus grief.
The poem that I added? Sure, I'll post it on the portal right away!
Millay and I have something little in common; I've given over sixty eulogies in the last ten years. I wish that mine were as touching as hers. I love 'If still your orchards bear.'
dròm_et_rêve wrote:The poem that I added? Sure, I'll post it on the portal right away!
Millay and I have something little in common; I've given over sixty eulogies in the last ten years. I wish that mine were as touching as hers. I love 'If still your orchards bear.'
Yup, that's a good one -- I love the image of apple trees and the long span of so many years. Somehow, that huge amount of time makes things easier and then not at all. It makes me ask more questions about why we're here and then we're gone.
You have given 60 eulogies? Gee whiz. I don't think I know that many people who have died. How did your happening to give so many eulogies come about? Did you write poetry for these? A'mazed, Piffka.
I have loads of distant relatives, as well as tenuous friends and the like, and so I seem to have gained a sort of reputation as a eulogists. Seeing as these people were mostly people whom I never knew, the best that I could do were sort of poems in prose, though I did write a few poems. I have a poem that I wrote for a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, who had been protecting the Basques, somewhere.
If you had to choose favourite poets, would Millay be up near the top, Piffka?
dròm_et_rêve wrote:If you had to choose favourite poets, would Millay be up near the top, Piffka?
Now what would make you think that?
Yes, I like her very much because she was a young, wild woman who did young, wild things. She loved nature, as I do, and scoffed at what I think of as the suburban mentality. She seemed very alive to me, and mostly happy. I've been on a Millay kick for a while. Do you have a favorite?
Surely Shakespeare is a better writer. If I were to take the collected works of anyone to a deserted island, it would be his. I'm not that picky though... I like most of the poetry that I hear. The rhythm and rhyme of spoken words can be a true marvel. We have a real treasure available with the poetry written in so many different languages and eras now available online.
About your being asked to be a eulogist so often... very impressive. Most people know that I am likely to sob at funerals even when I don't know the person who died. (I'm also likely to "go" at weddings, also whether or not I know the parties... watching horses compete...sailboats in the sun... singing in church, etc.) Nobody would ask me to speak!
Ahhh yes, the long view from the mountain. <long sigh>
I am glad we don't have to limit ourselves to one poet... or one set of collected works! How could I do without Auden? Or Dylan Thomas? Or Yeats? I shudder to think of a world without poets.
I will tell you a funny thing I had to do to desensitize myself. My youngest sister was getting married. I had decided I would NOT cry because both of my very young children (2 and 3 years old) were in the wedding party and I didn't want to frighten them. I played the Wedding March from Lohengrin many, many times a day in the weeks leading up to the wedding. But, oh! How Stupid! I forgot to ask and it turned out they used other music (Haydn's Water Music, I think). I sobbed like a... well, like a girl.
--- I also have a fondness for Theodore Roettke, who taught at my school and died in one of my favorite places.
In a Dark Time
T. Roettke
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
Roettke taught at your school!? Amazing! Where did he die?
(O, Piffka; was it the music that brought tears to your eyes?)
Thank heavens we don't like in an Orwellesque world, in which all the words of Shakespeare are changed.
Speaking of the man, here's one of my favourite bits of Othello:
The poor soul sat sighing
by a sycamore tree,
Sing O the green willow.
With his hand in his bosom
and his head upon his knee,
Oh willow, willow, willow, willow.
Oh willow, willow, willow, willow
My garland shall be.
Sing O the green willow.
Willow, willow, willow
I mean the green willow
My garland shall be.
He sighed to his singing
and made a great moan,
Sing O the green willow.
I am dead to all pleasure,
my true love is gone.
Oh willow, willow, willow, willow.
Oh willow, willow, willow, willow
My garland shall be.
Sing O the green willow.
Willow, willow, willow
I mean the green willow
My garland shall be.
Take this for my farewell
and latest adieu,
Sing O the green willow.
Write this on my tomb,
that in love I was true.
He did, but before my time. He was the teacher of some of Mr.P's teachers. Roettke died in the swimming pool of a couple on Bainbridge Island, north of here. That site has been turned into a Zen garden and the home into a private botanical park known as The Bloedel Reserve.
Yes, music affects me like a dog howling when its owner sings.
Nice sibilance in the Willow song. I like it too. As an aside, I have several willows (variagated willows) that I'm rooting just now. They are wonderful at rooting and also at helping other plants to root, did you know? It is something in their cambium layer. We had a Poetry in Shakespeare thread for a while, but I think we didn't have that song.
Thanks for the poem Piff. Carole would have agreed.
My Papa's Waltz
Theodore Roethke
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
From The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke by Theodore Roethke
. Although I am a eulogian, I've never been able to cope with loss. She sounds like a wonderful writer and human being 