As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
“The Summer” than “the Autumn,” lest
We turn the sun away,
And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved —
So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life’s Declivity.
by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Follow @telescoperThese are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, —
A blue and gold mistake.
Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!
Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,
Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!
by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886).
A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.
It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.
by Emily Dickinson (1830-86).
Just time to post a couple of poems today, both of them to do with the month of March. I posted my absolute favourite poem about March around this time last year.
This is one by A.E. Housman, and is taken from his collection A Shropshire Lad.
The sun at noon to higher air,
Unharnessing the silver Pair
That late before his chariot swam,
Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.
So braver notes the storm-cock sings
To start the rusted wheel of things,
And brutes in field and brutes in pen
Leap that the world goes round again.
The boys are up the woods with day
To fetch the daffodils away,
And home at noonday from the hills
They bring no dearth of daffodils.
Afield for palms the girls repair,
And sure enough the palms are there,
And each will find by hedge or pond
Her waving silver-tufted wand.
In farm and field through all the shire
The eye beholds the heart’s desire;
Ah, let not only mine be vain,
For lovers should be loved again.
And the second is by Emily Dickinson
Dear March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat–
You must have walked–
How out of breath you are!
Dear March, how are you?
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell!
I got your letter, and the birds’;
The maples never knew
That you were coming,–I declare,
How red their faces grew!
But, March, forgive me–
And all those hills
You left for me to hue;
There was no purple suitable,
You took it all with you.
Who knocks? That April!
Lock the door!
I will not be pursued!
He stayed away a year, to call
When I am occupied.
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come,
That blame is just as dear as praise
And praise as mere as blame.
Once again I haven’t had time to put together anything of much significance for the old blog today so, as usual when this happens, I’ll cheat by posting a poem. I picked this one for its wintry and appropriately melancholic theme; it is by the great American poet Emily Dickinson. I bought a collection of her poems in a very cheap edition in a bookshop in the States many years ago, but have never really managed to figure many of them out. I gather she features much more regularly in Eng. Lit. classes on the other side of the Atlantic than over here in Britain, and its probably my foreigner status that makes me find her poems so difficult.
This a very famous example of her work. At one level it expresses the unsettling effect that changes in light can have on the human psyche, but that’s just the start. The deeper meanings elude me, except that it is probably to do with the poet’s uncomfortable relationship with organized religion. At least when she was young, Emily Dickinson was a devotee of the Transcendentalist movement, which saw human experience, Nature and God as aspects of a transcendent unity. The view expressed in this poem is certainly nothing like that. This is a fractured, lonely world where Nature and God are both alien and oppressive influences.
The strange use of punctuation and capitalization is also very typical.
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —
None may teach it — Any —
‘Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —
When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —
In the Dark 