Linda's Literary Home

Category: Essays: Poems and Songs with Commentaries

  • Walter de la Mare’s “Silver”

    Image: Walter de la Mare  

    Walter de la Mare’s “Silver”

    The speaker in Walter de la Mare’s “Silver” personifies the moon as a lady out walking at night in silver slippers, showering the landscape and everything in it with the color of silver. The silvering of the night moon reveals a special style of beauty; while sunlight is gold, moonlight is silver.

    Introduction and Text of “Silver”

    Walter de la Mare’s classic poem, “Silver,” plays out in the form of an innovative sonnet [my coined term American-Innovative Sonnet], composed of seven riming couplets, in which the moon is personified as a lady out walking in silver slippers that shine upon the landscape causing everything visible to don a silver glow.

    The speaker is taking a walk at nighttime, and the moon shines gloriously upon the landscape. The speaker is emotionally enthralled by the transition from daylight appearance to nightlight appearance.

    The sun manifests for humanity one style of scenario, while the moon reveals quite another. The sense of sight is predominant during this rendering; one barely hears anything save perhaps the “scampering” of a “harvest mouse.”   The quiet beauty seems to swell the heart of the observer with tranquil appreciation.

    Silver 

    Slowly, silently, now the moon
    Walks the night in her silver shoon;
    This way, and that, she peers, and sees
    Silver fruit upon silver trees;
    One by one the casements catch
    Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
    Couched in his kennel, like a log,
    With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
    From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
    Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
    A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
    With silver claws, and silver eye;
    And moveless fish in the water gleam,
    By silver reeds in a silver stream.

    Reading of Walter de la Mare’s “Silver” 

    Commentary on “Silver”

    During daylight hours, sunlight reveals the creatures and things of the earth in its golden light, displaying many varied colors, while during the nighttime hours, moonlight offers a very different experience of seeing everything through the lens of silver.

    First Couplet:  The Moon Informs the Night

    Slowly, silently, now the moon
    Walks the night in her silver shoon;

    The speaker begins by setting the scene of the moon slowly moving in silence upon the landscape.  That moon is transforming the land in ways that one might not expect.  

    In sunlight, the creatures of earth have come to expect the ability to see all things in a certain way, but in moonlight all is changed——all is so very delightfully different. Instead of merely revealing the consciousness of daylight experience of earthly creatures, the moon reveals a whole different scenario.  

    The speaker portrays that difference by alerting the poem’s audience that the moon is “walk[ing] the night,” wearing “silver shoon.” The British dialect that uses “shoon” for “shoes” effects a useful rime with “moon.” 

    Personified as a lady, the silver slippered moon is walking the landscape “slowly” but also “silently.” Nighttime is a time for reflection, contemplation, and meditation. 

    And those who have observed the stillness of nighttime with the moon shining searchingly will attest to the serenity garnered from that quiet time of day:  a time for still reflection and musing on all that is beautiful, yet mysterious.

    Second Couplet:  The Moon Walking and Observing

    This way, and that, she peers, and sees
    Silver fruit upon silver trees;

    The moonlight permeates the landscape during her walk.  This metaphoric moon lady “peers and sees.” Anyone walking the silver-sprayed landscape at night might encounter certain objects being bathed and transformed by moonlight.  

    This moon sees trees with fruit.  The metaphor of the moon as a person walking the landscape enlarges the vision for the reader/listener who, no doubt, has encountered such an experience.  

    Who has not walked at night and observed the beauty of the transformed landscape from sunlight to moonlight?  Colors are gone, fine definitions are gone, but what is left is a new experience of beauty that entices the observer with new, fascinating perceptions.

    By personifying the moon as one who walks the landscape at night, the speaker/poet has given humanity back its experience of having seen that landscape and enjoyed it——perhaps without even realizing it, but still capturing it for future perusal in memory. 

    Because the poet has seen fit to capture that experience, his fellow earth inhabitants are now capable of experiencing it also.  In the speaker’s crystalline snapshot of his night walk in the silvery moonlight, he is creating a scene of beauty and stillness that complements the sun’s golden featuring of day.

    Third Couplet:  All Bathed in Silver

    One by one the casements catch
    Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

    The speaker then observes that the whole vantage point of his capability is bathed in silver.  The windows of every cottage he has the privilege to view are also bathed in that marvelous silver.  The thatched roofs are flowing with silver.  Everything is swimming in this mercurial silver.

    But far from poisoning anything as the actual metal will do, this silver enlivens and enhances the beauty of the nighttime landscape.  It merely proclaims that everything God has created is beautiful, if one can only open one’s eyes to see that beauty.  

    Most human eyes have become habituated to the fact that sunlight on a flower creates a wondrous spectacle of beauty.  Quite likely, far fewer have realized that the moonlight turning that same flower into a spectacle in silver could also offer an example of beauty.  This speaker’s unveiling his experience allows readers to engage their own hidden memories.

    Fourth Couplet:  Happy, Silvered Dogs

    Couched in his kennel, like a log,
    With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

    Human beings love their dogs——man’s best friend!  So much so that most Americans will not likely identify with “couched in a kennel,” because it is more likely that their dogs will be couched in their indoor beds not far from the beds of their human companions. 

    Yet, earlier history had people keeping their dogs outside in the dog houses or “kennels.”  Therefore, the speaker has observed that in their doghouses, these dogs are all silvered as they sleep “like a log.” Happy silvered dogs, sleep peacefully outside in full view of any observer who might be taking a walk in the moonlight.

    Fifth Couplet:  Silvery Sleep

    From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
    Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;

    Nature offers many scenes for observation.  The speaker then notes that even the doves can be seen in the silver of the moonlight.  The breasts of the doves are peeping out from their shadowy cote.   And like all the creatures of nature heretofore portrayed, the doves send forth the majestic beauty of the moon’s silver.

    Sixth Couplet:  Equal Opportunity in Silver

    A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
    With silver claws, and silver eye;

    The speaker does not fail to note that even rodents are captured by the silvering of the moon. The speaker then describes a harvest mouse.  The mouse goes “scampering by.”  And of course, this harvest mouse, this rodent, possesses “silver claws, and silver eye.”

    The silvering of the moon offers equal opportunity:  no one is left out, no one escapes it.  Silver becomes the only descriptor of things as they parade through the moonlight.  

    Thus, rinsed by silver moonlight, even the tiny harvest mouse becomes an important player in the scenario of the silver moonlight play.  Those silver “shoon” splash far and wide.

    Seventh Couplet:  The Silvering of Fish in a Silver Stream

    And moveless fish in the water gleam,
    By silver reeds in a silver stream.

    Having lived with fish in bodies of water in rivers, creeks, and lakes, I can attest to the silvering of fish in streams in moonlight.  They do, in fact, “gleam” with the silver of the moonlight.  

    Those fish do, in fact, take their existence among the “reeds,” as they swish through the waters, with the goal of continued existence, their way of glorifying their Creator in any way they can, at their evolutionary stage of existence. 

    This speaker has marvelously captured the wonderful silvering of things as they appear in the nighttime blessed with moonlight upon them.  

    As the moon has walked the night, she has invited those who have also observed such a scene to remember not the absence of golden light, but the intense presence of silver.   Night with a big moon paints beauty as it silvers each object and enhances its stillness in loveliness.

    Acknowledgment:  Hooked on Poetry

    Walter de la Mare’s “Silver” is the poem that is responsible for getting me hooked on poetry in high school in the early 1960s.  It was in Mrs. Edna Pickett’s sophomore English class that we read and studied this poem.  

    Mrs. Pickett was a devout Shakespeare scholar, and she had a soft spot in her heart for all poetry.  As she explained the nature of poetry, she defined that form as a “crystallization” of thought.  The devotion that she felt for that form was clear and moving.  

    From that point on, I have felt that I too possessed a motivating kinship with the form, and that relationship has grown deeper and broader over the years, since 1961, when I first studied literature in Mrs. Pickett’s class.

  • Seamus Heaney’s “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”

    Image:  Seamus Heaney

    Seamus Heaney’s “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”

    Seamus Heaney’s “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” is displayed in four parts. The piece dramatizes a rough-style free verse with an irregularly paced rime scheme. The speaker is describing the events surrounding the command for political operatives to be extremely careful with what they say.

    Introduction and Text of “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”

    The title, “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing,” originates with the secretive activity of Northern Ireland’s rebel paramilitary that admonished its members with this demand. 

    Its purpose was to advise members to be extremely careful with what they say. If they speak to “civilians” at all, they should make their talk so small that it would reveal nothing about their activity. 

    Whatever You Say, Say Nothing

    I

    I’m writing just after an encounter
    With an English journalist in search of  ‘views
    On the Irish thing’.  I’m back in winter
    Quarters where bad news is no longer news,
    Where media-men and stringers sniff and point,
    Where zoom lenses, recorders and coiled leads
    Litter the hotels. The times are out of joint
    But I incline as much to rosary beads
    As to the jottings and analyses
    Of politicians and newspapermen
    Who’ve scribbled down the long campaign from gas
    And protest to gelignite and Sten,
    Who proved upon their pulses ‘escalate’,
    ‘Backlash’ and ‘crack down’, ‘the provisional wing’,
    ‘Polarization’ and ‘long-standing hate’.
    Yet I live here, I live here too, I sing,
    Expertly civil-tongued with civil neighbours
    On the high wires of first wireless reports,
    Sucking the fake taste, the stony flavours
    Of those sanctioned, old, elaborate retorts:
    ‘Oh, it’s disgraceful, surely, I agree.’
    ‘Where’s it going to end?’ ‘It’s getting worse.’
    ‘They’re murderers.’ ‘Internment, understandably …’
    The ‘voice of sanity’ is getting hoarse.

    II

    Men die at hand. In blasted street and home
    The gelignite’s a common sound effect:
    As the man said when Celtic won, ‘The Pope of Rome’s
    a happy man this night.’ His flock suspect

    In their deepest heart of hearts the heretic
    Has come at last to heel and to the stake.
    We tremble near the flames but want no truck
    With the actual firing. We’re on the make

    As ever. Long sucking the hind tit
    Cold as a witch’s and as hard to swallow
    Still leaves us fork-tongued on the border bit:
    The liberal papist note sounds hollow

    When amplified and mixed in with the bangs
    That shake all hearts and windows day and night.
    (It’s tempting here to rhyme on ‘labour pangs’
    And diagnose a rebirth in our plight

    But that would be to ignore other symptoms.
    Last night you didn’t need a stethoscope
    To hear the eructation of Orange drums
    Allergic equally to Pearse and Pope.)

    On all sides ‘little platoons’ are mustering-
    The phrase is Cruise O’Brien’s via that great
    Backlash, Burke-while I sit here with a pestering
    Drouth for words at once both gaff and bait

    To lure the tribal shoals to epigram
    And order. I believe any of us
    Could draw the line through bigotry and sham
    Given the right line, aere perennius.

    III

    “Religion’s never mentioned here”, of course.
    “You know them by their eyes,” and hold your tongue.
    “One side’s as bad as the other,” never worse.
    Christ, it’s near time that some small leak was sprung
    In the great dykes the Dutchman made
    To dam the dangerous tide that followed Seamus.
    Yet for all this art and sedentary trade
    I am incapable. The famous
    Northern reticence, the tight gag of place
    And times: yes, yes. Of the “wee six” I sing
    Where to be saved you only must save face
    And whatever you say, you say nothing.
    Smoke-signals are loud-mouthed compared with us:
    Manoeuvrings to find out name and school,
    Subtle discrimination by addresses
    With hardly an exception to the rule
    That Norman, Ken and Sidney signalled Prod
    And Seamus (call me Sean) was sure-fire Pape.
    O land of password, handgrip, wink and nod,
    Of open minds as open as a trap,
    Where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks,
    Where half of us, as in a wooden horse
    Were cabin’d and confined like wily Greeks,
    Besieged within the siege, whispering morse.

    IV

    This morning from a dewy motorway
    I saw the new camp for the internees:
    A bomb had left a crater of fresh clay
    In the roadside, and over in the trees
    Machine-gun posts defined a real stockade.
    There was that white mist you get on a low ground
    And it was déjà-vu, some film made
    Of Stalag 17, a bad dream with no sound.
    Is there a life before death? That’s chalked up
    In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
    Coherent miseries, a bite and sup,
    We hug our little destiny again.

    Commentary on “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”

    The poem, “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing,” is displayed in four parts. The piece dramatizes a rough-style free verse with an irregularly paced rime scheme.

    First Part:  Harassed by Reporters

    I’m writing just after an encounter
    With an English journalist in search of  ‘views
    On the Irish thing’.  I’m back in winter
    Quarters where bad news is no longer news,
    Where media-men and stringers sniff and point,
    Where zoom lenses, recorders and coiled leads
    Litter the hotels. The times are out of joint
    But I incline as much to rosary beads
    As to the jottings and analyses
    Of politicians and newspapermen
    Who’ve scribbled down the long campaign from gas
    And protest to gelignite and Sten,
    Who proved upon their pulses ‘escalate’,
    ‘Backlash’ and ‘crack down’, ‘the provisional wing’,
    ‘Polarization’ and ‘long-standing hate’.
    Yet I live here, I live here too, I sing,
    Expertly civil-tongued with civil neighbours
    On the high wires of first wireless reports,
    Sucking the fake taste, the stony flavours
    Of those sanctioned, old, elaborate retorts:
    ‘Oh, it’s disgraceful, surely, I agree.’
    ‘Where’s it going to end?’ ‘It’s getting worse.’
    ‘They’re murderers.’ ‘Internment, understandably …’
    The ‘voice of sanity’ is getting hoarse.

    In Part I, the speaker reports that he is being harassed by reporters.  They seek information about how the Irish feel about their situation.  The intrusive reporters shove cameras and microphones into the faces of the locals.  They “litter” the localities and disturb the peace.    

    The speaker then describes the chaos of the political situation.  He claims that he leans more toward religion than politics, but because he is also a citizen he has to pay some attention to current events.

    The speaker portrays the situation as fractious and obstreperous.  As the citizens discuss the chaos, each has his own opinion.  But this speaker/observer notes that certain phrases keep popping up as the folks wonder how all the fighting and back-biting will end.   They all agree that the situation is disagreeable even full of disgrace.

    The speaker even hears his neighbors complaining and keening cries about murderers.  They seem to have no recourse to keep themselves safe.  There seems to be no one around them who possesses a healthy attitude.   

    The speaker’s attitude runs the gamut from amusement to sheer philosophical angst as he looks on the chaos.  He becomes Yeastian at times as he marvels, condemns, and pontificates. 

    Second Part:  After Centuries of War Zone Living

    Men die at hand. In blasted street and home
    The gelignite’s a common sound effect:
    As the man said when Celtic won, ‘The Pope of Rome’s
    a happy man this night.’ His flock suspect

    In their deepest heart of hearts the heretic
    Has come at last to heel and to the stake.
    We tremble near the flames but want no truck
    With the actual firing. We’re on the make

    As ever. Long sucking the hind tit
    Cold as a witch’s and as hard to swallow
    Still leaves us fork-tongued on the border bit:
    The liberal papist note sounds hollow

    When amplified and mixed in with the bangs
    That shake all hearts and windows day and night.
    (It’s tempting here to rhyme on ‘labour pangs’
    And diagnose a rebirth in our plight

    But that would be to ignore other symptoms.
    Last night you didn’t need a stethoscope
    To hear the eructation of Orange drums
    Allergic equally to Pearse and Pope.)

    On all sides ‘little platoons’ are mustering-
    The phrase is Cruise O’Brien’s via that great
    Backlash, Burke-while I sit here with a pestering
    Drouth for words at once both gaff and bait

    To lure the tribal shoals to epigram
    And order. I believe any of us
    Could draw the line through bigotry and sham
    Given the right line, aere perennius.

    The speaker is, however, also capable of spouting the same jeremiads that the Irish have spouted for centuries of residing in a war zone.  Understandably, they have become hardened and discouraged seeing people dying around them as homes are bombed and streets are littered with fire power and debris.   

    The speaker claims that a common sound is the explosion of  “gelignite.” He seems fascinated by the term “gelignite,” which he continues to spread liberally throughout his passages. 

    The speaker is also, however, dramatizing the socialist nature of the crowd and manages to fling off a worked-over cliché:  “cold as a witch’s tit” becomes “hind tit / Cold as a witch’s”—his colorful way of dramatizing the angst. 

    The speaker’s colorful portrayals lurch the poem forward, even if the politics gives it a decided lag, as he confounds the papal intrusion with emptiness.   The continued explosions, however, rip the night and rattle the people’s minds and hearts as well as the windows of their houses.

    Of course, the reader is aware that eventual outcomes depend totally upon which side one is shouting for.  The speaker philosophizes that all the citizens could find the correct solution given enough time and space.  

    They would likely be better at cutting through the bigotry and fake political posturing than those seeking personal gain at the expense of others.  Enough time and anything could be accomplished, the speaker wants to suggest. 

    Third Part:  The Resistance vs Authority

    “Religion’s never mentioned here”, of course.
    “You know them by their eyes,” and hold your tongue.
    “One side’s as bad as the other,” never worse.
    Christ, it’s near time that some small leak was sprung
    In the great dykes the Dutchman made
    To dam the dangerous tide that followed Seamus.
    Yet for all this art and sedentary trade
    I am incapable. The famous
    Northern reticence, the tight gag of place
    And times: yes, yes. Of the “wee six” I sing
    Where to be saved you only must save face
    And whatever you say, you say nothing.
    Smoke-signals are loud-mouthed compared with us:
    Manoeuvrings to find out name and school,
    Subtle discrimination by addresses
    With hardly an exception to the rule
    That Norman, Ken and Sidney signalled Prod
    And Seamus (call me Sean) was sure-fire Pape.
    O land of password, handgrip, wink and nod,
    Of open minds as open as a trap,
    Where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks,
    Where half of us, as in a wooden horse
    Were cabin’d and confined like wily Greeks,
    Besieged within the siege, whispering morse.

    In Part III, the poem’s title appears, warning that the members of the resistance should take great care not to tip their hand.  If they speak to anyone, they must keep their conversation as neutral as possible.

    They must be quiet, so quiet that a smoke-signal would sound louder.  They must keep their talk to a level of mum.  They must not reveal their plans to anyone lest some authority figure get hold of them.

    Fourth Part:  Is There Life Before Death?

    This morning from a dewy motorway
    I saw the new camp for the internees:
    A bomb had left a crater of fresh clay
    In the roadside, and over in the trees
    Machine-gun posts defined a real stockade.
    There was that white mist you get on a low ground
    And it was déjà-vu, some film made
    Of Stalag 17, a bad dream with no sound.
    Is there a life before death? That’s chalked up
    In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
    Coherent miseries, a bite and sup,
    We hug our little destiny again.

    In the final part, the speaker describes what he has seen.  He saw a crater in the middle of an internee camp.  The bomb has carved out the crater and the fresh clay has been spewed all over the trees and the road.

    The speaker then sums up his report with a statement filled with questions.  He wonders if there is life before death.  He also questions the notions of pain and competence.  It seems that life is filled with contradictions, that misery can be coherent stands in his mind as a blind trust.  

    If they are to enjoy their dinner, they must grasp their own destiny repeatedly as they wait for each bit of knowledge that will eventually lead them out of chaos. 

    Reading: Seamus Heaney reading Part 3 of his poem:  

  • Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s “The Queen’s Last Ride”

    Image:  Queen Victoria – National Portrait Gallery, London

    Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s “The Queen’s Last Ride”

    As the subtitle to the elegy reveals, the poet composed her poem “The Queen’s Last Ride” on the day of Queen Victoria’s funeral on February 2, 1901. The poem retains it special status and a tribute to the queen, whose reign influenced an era.

    Introduction and Text of “The Queen’s Last Ride”

    With its colorful imagery and a strict formal tone, Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s elegy “The Queen’s Last Ride” reveals the serious nature of the occasion.  

    The poem furthermore presents clearly the results of the speaker’s having mused on the themes of mortality, a royal legacy, and spiritual transcendence from the physical level of being to the astral level of being.

    The Queen’s Last Ride

    (Written on the day of Queen Victoria’s funeral)

    The Queen is taking a drive to-day,
    They have hung with purple the carriage-way,
    They have dressed with purple the royal track
    Where the Queen goes forth and never comes back.

    Let no man labour as she goes by
    On her last appearance to mortal eye:
    With heads uncovered let all men wait
    For the Queen to pass, in her regal state.

    Army and Navy shall lead the way
    For that wonderful coach of the Queen’s to-day.
    Kings and Princes and Lords of the land
    Shall ride behind her, a humble band;
    And over the city and over the world
    Shall the Flags of all Nations be half-mast-furled,
    For the silent lady of royal birth
    Who is riding away from the Courts of earth,
    Riding away from the world’s unrest
    To a mystical goal, on a secret quest.

    Though in royal splendour she drives through town,
    Her robes are simple, she wears no crown:
    And yet she wears one, for, widowed no more,
    She is crowned with the love that has gone before,
    And crowned with the love she has left behind
    In the hidden depths of each mourner’s mind.

    Bow low your heads—lift your hearts on high—
    The Queen in silence is driving by!

    Reading of “The Queen’s Last Ride”

    Commentary on “The Queen’s Last Ride”

    On the same day as Queen Victoria’s funeral on February 2, 1901,Ella Wheeler Wilcox composed her most famous and likely most ambitious poem “The Queen’s Last Ride.” The poem is an elegy for the queen’s funeral procession, commingling sentiments of reverence as well as spirituality.

    Stanza 1: A Metaphoric Drive

    They have hung with purple the carriage-way,
    They have dressed with purple the royal track
    Where the Queen goes forth and never comes back.

    The first stanza introduces the poem’s main metaphor: the queen’s funeral procession is portrayed as a “drive,” a term which lightens the formal nature of a royal, state funeral, while it grants the occasion an intimate, personal tone. 

    The repetition of “purple” in “They have hung with purple the carriage-way” and “They have dressed with purple the royal track” implies the color’s two-fold importance as a symbol of royalty and also as a symbol of spirituality [1]. 

    In Victorian England, the color of purple was used to symbolize royal dignity [2]; that hue was often in evidence in ceremonies to signal authority but also to show reverence. 

    The color’s distinction in this poem emphasizes the grave and serious nature of the occasion; it utterly transforms the physical, earthly path of the procession into a symbolic “royal track” that leads to an eternal destination. The implication corresponds to the poem’s spiritual undertones.

    The phrase “Where the Queen goes forth and never comes back” heralds the theme of finality, signaling that death remains an inevitable departure. The word “never” rings in a stark closure, which contrasts mightily with the gentleness suggested by use of the term “drive”; thus a balance of tenderness and inevitability is accomplished.

    The speaker’s employment of the present tense—”The Queen is taking a drive to-day”—creates a feel of immediacy, connecting the poem to the historical moment of February 2, 1901, when the queen’s  funeral procession actually took place [3]. 

    This time-stamped anchoring invites readers to join and observe the event as it is occurring; this invitation encourages a shared sense of mourning. The stanza’s meter and rime scheme (AABB) parallels the orderly movement of the funeral  procession, as it emphasizes the ceremonial tone. 

    Furthermore, the actions stated by “They have hung” and “They have dressed” suggest a shared effort. It is thus implied that the nation—or even the world—is, in fact, participating in arranging this sacred path. 

    That shared agency sets the stage for the poem’s broader exploration of shared grief and reverence; such common sharing places the queen’s act of leaving her physical encasement (death) as a special moment of world-wide importance.

    The imagery of the “carriage-way” and “royal track” further reveals the Victorian fascination with ceremonial processions [4] as well as other public events. 

    Funerals of high-ranking official were very carefully orchestrated events; they were intended to mirror the social order of the community [5]. Wilcox’s speaker’s use of language clearly communicates the Victorian cultural customs. 

    Such subtle linguistic performance is responsible for transforming the physical route of funeral procession into a metaphorical, even metaphysical,  journey from the earthly to the spiritual level of being. 

    Finally, this stanza sets forth the poem’s somber tone while firmly grounding it in the cultural and historical state of Queen Victoria’s unusually long occupation of the throne, which ran through six decades (63 years and 7 months, from June 20, 1837, to her death on January 22, 1901) and left an enduring influence on British identity.

    Stanza 2:  Setting Laboring Duties Aside

    Let no man labour as she goes by
    On her last appearance to mortal eye:
    With heads uncovered let all men wait
    For the Queen to pass, in her regal state.

    The second stanza moves from description to command: it calls for the ceasing of labor and the displaying of respect.  No one should be giving attention to anything else as the queen passes by for the last time.

    This command demonstrates the Victorian era’s stress on decorum, especially during moments of national mourning. The laying aside of work was a common practice during royal funerals. The cessation of labor and other everyday duties was for demonstrating a community pause for the purpose of honoring the deceased. 

    The speaker’s command to stand with “heads uncovered” calls forth a traditional gesture of respect.  This custom became deeply ensconced in British customs of removing any head gear in the presence of royalty or during solemn occasions. 

    This act of removing headgear also carries a democratic undertone, which suggests that all men, regardless of class, remain united in moments of homage.

    The phrase “last appearance to mortal eye” deepens the poem’s musing on mortality; such musing frames death as a leaving off of human sense awareness. 

    The word “mortal” emphasizes the Queen’s humanness, an act that strips away her royal status to concentrate on her shared vulnerability with all other member of humanity. 

    This universal gesture is representative of Wilcoxian poetry in general, which often explores themes of human connection and spiritual continuity. The stanza’s imperative tone—”Let no man labour” and “let all men wait”—creates a sense of common obligation, inviting readers to join in the ritual of mourning. 

    The regular rime and meter continue to parallel the orderly nature of the procession, while the repetition of “let” reinforces the speaker’s authority in guiding the reader’s response.

    The second stanza also subtly critiques the busyness of modern life, a growing concern in Victorian literary arts. By calling for a pause in labor, the speaker elevates the queen’s passing above the everyday concerns of life, placing it as a moment of profound importance. 

    The phrase “her regal state” reinforces Victoria’s continued majesty, even in death, while the act of waiting suggests a open space between life and death, where the living honor those who have left their physical encasements. 

    This stanza thus serves as both a call to action and as a musing on the cultural practices that guided Victorian responses to death, particularly for a queen whose reign set the boundaries of an era.

    Stanza 3: A World-Wide Tribute

    Army and Navy shall lead the way
    For that wonderful coach of the Queen’s to-day.
    Kings and Princes and Lords of the land
    Shall ride behind her, a humble band;
    And over the city and over the world
    Shall the Flags of all Nations be half-mast-furled,
    For the silent lady of royal birth
    Who is riding away from the Courts of earth,
    Riding away from the world’s unrest
    To a mystical goal, on a secret quest.

    The third stanza expands the poem’s reach to a world-wide scale; it depicts a grand procession led by the “Army and Navy,” followed by “Kings and Princes and Lords of the land.” 

    This imagery accurately portrays the historical reality of Queen Victoria’s funeral, which was a carefully orchestrated event, attended by foreign dignitaries, including other European royalty, and further punctuated with military honors. 

    Victoria’s rôle as the “grandmother (or godmother) of Europe” [6], with family ties to many royal houses, transformed her funeral as a diplomatic as well as a ceremonial occasion. 

    The speaker’s introduction of “Kings and Princes” emphasizes the international extent of her influence, while at the same time portraying the Queen as a unifying figure whose impact had been felt beyond national borders.

    The image of “Flags of all Nations” at half-mast further emphasizes the international impact of Victoria’s death. The half-mast flag, a world-wide symbol of mourning, reveals the widespread grief that accompanied the end of her reign, which correlated with the height of British imperial power. 

    The speaker’s claim of “all Nations” suggests the joint act of homage, which reinforces the queen’s rôle as a symbol of stability in an era of rapid expansion of colonies and often uncertain international alliances. 

    The stanza’s language, with its expansive scope and formal diction, parallels the grandeur of the funeral itself, which was formal display of imperial power as well as national unity.

    The latter half of the stanza introduces a spiritual element, as it describes the queen as a “silent lady of royal birth” who is “riding away from the Courts of earth” to a “mystical goal, on a secret quest.” 

    This move from earthly to astral realms corresponds to the Victorian interest in spirituality and the afterlife, a theme  that can be observed in tWilcox’ oeuvre as well. 

    The word “silent” invokes both the solemn nature of the funeral and the ineffable nature of death, while “mystical goal” and “secret quest” suggest a transcendental purpose beyond human understanding. 

    These phrases subtly suffuse the queen’s final journey with an element of divine mystery, which places her death as a possible passage to a higher plane of existence. The stanza thus melds the specifics of history with universal themes, which reflects both the public exhibition of the funeral and the private, spiritual implications for immortality.

    Stanza 4:  Emphasizing Simplicity

    Though in royal splendour she drives through town,
    Her robes are simple, she wears no crown:
    And yet she wears one, for, widowed no more,
    She is crowned with the love that has gone before,
    And crowned with the love she has left behind
    In the hidden depths of each mourner’s mind.

    The fourth stanza juxtaposes the queen’s “royal splendour” with her simplicity, noting that “Her robes are simple, she wears no crown.” (Note the use of the British spelling “splendour.”)

    This contrast furthermore demonstrates the historical portrayal of Victoria in her later years, especially after the death of her husband (consort) Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1861, at which time she adopted a subdued public image; she often publicly appeared n simple black attire [7]. 

    The speaker’s stress on simplicity humanizes the queen and signals that she remained humble. Humility was a Victorian ideal, especially in the facing of death. However, the speaker reimagines the crown by portraying it as a metaphorical one, “crowned with the love that has gone before” and “crowned with the love she has left behind.” 

    This two-fold crowning advances Victoria’s legacy well beyond any material wealth and speeds it on to an enduring emotional and spiritual force.

    The reference to “love that has gone before” likely alludes to Prince Albert, whose death profoundly influenced Victoria’s life as all as her reign. The “love she has left behind” reaches to the mourners, who remain carrying love in the “hidden depths of [their] mind.” 

    This phrase suggests a personal, introspective connection to the queen, emphasizing her rôle as a beloved figure, whose influence continues in shared memory. The imagery of a crown of love elevates the traditional symbol of royalty to a universal emblem of affection and loyalty, which emphasizes the poem’s theme of legacy.

    The stanza’s language, with its emphasis on simplicity and emotional depth, reveals the poet’s skill in combining the personal and the public. 

    The regular rime scheme continues to provide a sense of order, which parallels the structured and controlled nature of the funeral procession, while the shift to metaphorical imagery introduces a more introspective tone. 

    By focusing on the queen’s emotional legacy, the speaker emphasizes the human dimension of her passing, inviting readers to reflect on their own bond with the monarch.

    Final Couplet 5: A Silent Farewell

    Bow low your heads—lift your hearts on high—
    The Queen in silence is driving by!

    The final couplet serves as a touching conclusion, urging readers to bow their heads as in prayer but also to take the occasion into their hearts with great feeling.  This duality speaks to the poem’s balance of grief and hope, a distinctive feature of all successful elegiac poetry. 

    The act of bowing heads signifies humility, respect, and mourning, while lifting hearts suggests a transcendence of earthly, physical plane sorrow, joining with the spiritual undercurrents introduced earlier. 

    The phrase “The Queen in silence is driving by” reinforces the solemn nature of the moment, with “silence” symbolizing both the reverence of the mourners and the ineffable nature of death. The repetition of “driving” ties back to the first stanza, creating a cyclical structure that simulates the the motion of the procession’s journey.

    The stanza’s commanding tone engages readers directly, inviting them to join in the shared act of mourning. This call to action reveals the Victorian practice of community grieving, where public displays of sorrow reinforced social continuity. 

    The upward gesture of lifting hearts also corresponds to the Christian tenet of resurrection and eternal life, which was cardinal to Victorian commemoration culture. 

    By concluding with this hopeful note, the speaker transforms the queen’s death into a moment of spiritual upliftment, an act which strongly suggests that her legacy will endure beyond the physical level of being.

    Wilcox’s Mastery

    Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s “The Queen’s Last Ride” remains a masterful elegy that explores the interaction between public presentation and private grief. 

    As both a historical, literary artifact and a timeless musing on death, “The Queen’s Last Ride” exemplifies Wilcox’s ability to blend individual emotional depth with public formal elegance, offering a fitting tribute to a queen whose reign influenced the culture and customs of an era.

    Sources

    [1]  Editors. “Exploring Purple Symbolism: From Royalty to Spirituality.” The Symbolism Hub. 2025.

    [2]  Greg Gillespie.  “What Does Purple Mean in the Victorian Era?” Vintage Printable Art.  June 23, 2023.

    [3] Curators. “Funeral procession of Queen Victoria, February 1901.”  Todays History.  February 1, 2019.

    [4]  Herman du Toit, editor.  Pageants and Processions: Images and Idiom as Spectacle. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.  2009. pdf.

    [5] Curators. “The History of Funeral Processions.” Sunset.  April 1, 2024.

    [6]  Editors.  “The ‘Godmother of Europe’: Queen Victoria’s Family Ties across the Continent.”  Accessed May 31, 2025.

    [7] Liam Doyle. “Royal Heartbreak: Why Did Queen Victoria Wear Black?” Express. September 17, 2020.

    Image:  Ella Wheeler Wilcox 

  • Ben Okri’s Poem “Obama”

    Image:  Ben Okri

    Ben Okri’s Poem “Obama”

    A no-achievement president confounds the ability of a poet, who tries to celebrate the outgoing leader but can find no achievements to celebrate.

    Introduction with Text of Ben Okri’s “Obama” 

    On Thursday, January 19, 2017, one day before the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America, the U.S.A. edition of The Guardian published Ben Okri’s poem [1] simply titled “Obama,” about which the publication claimed, “With Donald Trump about to enter the White House, a poet celebrates the achievements of the outgoing president.”

    One will peruse Okri’s poem in vain looking of any achievements that might be associated with President #44.  One will also peruse this poem in vain looking for any “celebration.”  The poem offers four musings of a philosophical nature, each handled in each of the four movements that structure the piece:  

    1. “Sometimes the world is not changed / Till the right person appears who can / Change it.”
    2. “For it is our thoughts that make / Our world.”
    3. “Being a black president is not a magic wand / That will make all black problems disappear.”
    4. “And so what Obama did and did not do is neither / Here nor there, in the great measure of things.”

    Each musing remains a vague utterance, especially in relationship to its avowed subject.  The promise of celebrating achievements becomes a dumbfounded leitmotiv that like the Obama presidency fails to deliver anything substantial.

    Toward the end of the piece, the speaker even seems to have become aware that he had not, in fact, offered anything concrete regarding the achievements of this president.  Thus, he rehashes an old lie that people wanted this president to fail so they could support their racism.  

    For any opposition to a black president has to be racist! 

    The opposition cannot be opposing a black president because they do not agree with his policies; that opposition must be the result of the “race-hate, twin deity of America,” despite the blaring fact that that race-hateful America elected this black man to their highest office twice.

    Okri usually provides level-headed, balanced thinking on most issues, even the race issue.  He knows the difference between achievement and lack thereof; thus, in this poem, he has his speaker spouting philosophical stances and then only implying that they apply to Barack Obama. 

    Okri, the thinking man, knows that Barack Obama is the epitome of an “empty-suit.”  Obama can lay no claim to achievements accept negative ones.  This poem might even be considered one of those that “damn with faint praise” [2].

    Obama

    Sometimes the world is not changed
    Till the right person appears who can
    Change it. But the right person is also
    In a way the right time. For the time
    And the person have to work
    The secret alchemy together.
    But to change the world is more than
    Changing its laws. Sometimes it is just
    Being a new possibility, a portal
    Through which new fire can enter
    This world of foolishness and error.
    They change the world best who
    Change the way people think.

    For it is our thoughts that make
    Our world. Some think it is our deeds;
    But deeds are the children of thought.
    The thought-changers are the game-changers,
    Are the life-changers.
    We think that achievements are symbols.
    But symbols are not symbols.
    Obama is not a mere symbol.
    Sometimes even a symbol is a sign
    That we are not dreaming potently
    Enough. A sign that the world is the home
    Of possibility. A sign that our chains
    Are unreal. That we are freer than we
    Know, that we are more powerful than
    We dare to think. If he is a symbol at all,
    Then he is a symbol of our possible liberation.
    A symbol also that power in this world
    Cannot do everything. Even Moses could
    Not set his people free. They too had to
    Wander in the wilderness. They too turned
    Against their leaders and their God
    And had to overcome much in their
    Make up and their history to arrive
    At the vision their prophets had long before.

    Being a black president is not a magic wand
    That will make all black problems disappear.
    Leaders cannot undo all the evils that
    Structural evils make natural in the life
    Of a people. Not just leadership, but
    Structures must change. Structures of thought
    Structures of dreams structures of injustice
    Structures that keep a people imprisoned
    To the stones and the dust and the ash
    And the dirt and the dry earth and the dead
    Roads. Always we look to our leaders
    To change what we ourselves must change
    With the force of our voices and the force
    Of our souls and the strength of our dreams
    And the clarity of our visions and the strong
    Work of our hands. Too often we get fixated
    On symbols. We think fame ought to promote
    Our cause, that presidents ought to change our
    Destinies, that more black faces on television
    Would somehow make life easier and more just
    For our people. But symbols ought to only be
    A sign to us that the power is in our hands.
    Mandela ought to be a sign to us that we cannot
    Be kept down, that we are self-liberating.
    And Obama ought to be a sign to us that
    There is no destiny in colour. There is only
    Destiny in our will and our dreams and the storms
    Our “noes” can unleash and the wonder our “yesses”
    Can create. But we have to do the work ourselves
    To change the structures so that we can be free.
    Freedom is not colour; freedom is thought; it is an
    Attitude, a power of spirit, a constant self-definition.

    And so what Obama did and did not do is neither
    Here nor there, in the great measure of things.
    History knows what he did, against the odds.
    History knows what he could not do. Not that
    His hands were tied, but that those who resent
    The liberation of one who ought not to be liberated
    Blocked those doors and those roads and whipped
    Up those sleeping and not so sleeping demons
    Of race-hate, twin deity of America. And they turned
    His yes into a no just so they could say they told us so,
    Told us that colour makes ineffectuality, that colour
    Makes destiny. They wanted him to fail so they could
    Prove their case. Can’t you see it? But that’s what
    Heroes do: they come through in spite of all that blockage,
    All those obstacles thrown in the path of the self-liberated.
    That way the symbol would be tainted and would fail
    To be a beacon and a sign that it is possible
    To be black and to be great.

    Commentary on Ben Okri’s  “Obama”

    Ben Okri is a fine poet and thinker.  His unfortunate choice of subject matter for this piece, however, leads his speaker down a rocky path to nowhere.

    First Movement:  “Change”?  But Where is the “Hope”?

    The speaker of Okri’s “Obama” has a mighty task before him:  he must transform a sow’s ear into a silk purse.  And of course, that cannot be done.  But the speaker tries, beginning with some wide brush strokes that attempt to sound profound:  only the right person appearing at the right time can change with world.  

    Changing laws is not sufficient to change the world, so sometimes it is only a “new possibility” which functions like a new door “through with a new fire can enter.”  

    The speaker is, of course, implying that his subject, Obama, is that “portal” through which a new fire has entered.  Readers will note that the speaker is only implying such; he does not make any direct statement about Obama actually being that new door or new fire.

    The election of 2016, after eight years of this implied new fire that has supposedly changed the way people think, proved that American citizens were indeed thinking differently.

    They had grown tired of stagnant economic growth, the destruction of their health care system, the rampant lawlessness of illegal immigrants, the war on law enforcement officers fueled by that “hope and change” spouting candidate, the ironically deteriorated race relations, and the installation of a petty dictatorship fueled by political correctness.  

    This beckon of hope and change had promised to fundamentally change [3] the United States of America, and his policies indeed had put the country on a path to an authoritarian state from which the Founders had guarded the country through the U. S. Constitution.  Obama proceeded to flout that document as he ruled by executive order, circumventing the congress.

    Indeed, after those abominable, disastrous eight years, people’s minds had changed, and they wanted no more of those socialistic policies that were driving the country to the status of a Banana Republic.

    The speaker, of course, will never refer to any of the negative accomplishments of his subject, but also he will never refer to any positive accomplishment because there simply are none.  Thus, no achievement is mentioned in the opening movement.

    Five days away:  

    Second Movement:  Symbols, Signs, Still No Achievements

    The speaker then continues with the mere philosophizing, offering some useful ideas that have nothing to do with his subject.  He asserts the importance of thought, how thought is the mother of deeds.  He then begins an equivocating series of lines that indeed fit quite well with the shallow, misdirection of the subject about which he tries to offer a celebration.

    The speaker makes a bizarre, false claim, “We think that achievements are symbols.”  We do not think any such thing; we think that achievements are important, useful accomplishments.

    A presidential achievement represents some act which the leader has encouraged that results in better lives for citizens. 

    Americans had high hopes [4] that the very least this black president could achieve would be the continued improvement of race relations.  Those hopes were dashed as this president from his bully pulpit denigrated whole segments of society—the religious, the patriotic, and especially the members of law enforcement [5].  

    Obama damaged the reputation of the entire nation as he traveled on foreign soil, apologizing for American behavior [6] that had actually assisted those nations in their times of distress.  

    The speaker then ludicrously states, “symbols are not symbols,” which he follows with “Obama is not a mere symbol.”  

    In a kind of syllogistic attempt to define a symbol, the speaker admits the truth that Obama actually had no achievements. If achievements are symbols, and Obama is not a “mere” symbol, then we hold the notion that Obama does not equal achievements, except for whatever the word “mere” might add to the equation.

    But the speaker then turns from symbols to signs. Signs can show us whether we are dreaming correctly or not.  Signs can show us that we are more free than we know.  But if Obama is any kind of  symbol, he symbolizes “our possible liberation.”  

    But he is also a symbol that “power in this world / Cannot do everything.”  He then turns to Moses’ inability to liberate his people.

    The sheer inappropriateness of likening the lead-from-behind, atheistic Obama to the great historical, religious figure Moses boggles the mind.  The speaker then makes an astoundingly arrogant inference that Americans turning against Obama equates to Moses’ people turning against him “and their God.”  

    Americans turning against leader Obama means they will have to “wander in the wilderness” until they at last come to their senses and return to the “vision of their prophets.”

    The speaker again has offered only musings about symbols, signs, power, lack of power, dreams, and misdirection, but he offers nothing that Obama has done that could be called an achievement.

    Third Movement:  Color Is not Destiny

    This movement offers a marvelous summation of truths, which essentially places all leaders in their proper places.  Leaders can serve only as symbols or signs to remind citizens that only the people themselves have the power to change the structures of society that limit individuals.  

    Black presidents possess no “magic wand” with which to make all “black problems disappear.”  Even Nelson Mandela should serve only as a sign that we are all “self-liberating.”

    The speaker rightly laments that we tend to look to our leaders to perform for us the very acts that we must perform for ourselves.  Our leaders cannot guarantee our inner freedom, only we can do that. 

    He asserts that Obama must remain only a sign that there is “no destiny in colour.”  Our destiny is in our own will and in our own dreams. 

    The speaker correctly asserts, “Freedom is not colour; freedom is thought; it is an / Attitude, a power of spirit, a constant self-definition.”

    Sadly, Obama has never demonstrated that he understands the position taken in Okri’s third movement.  Obama is so steeped in political correctness and radical collectivism that he always denigrates the stereotypical white privileged over the stereotypical groups of race, gender, nationality, and religion.  

    Obama’s warped, highly partisan stance would never accept the statements about freedom as described by Okri.  Obama believes that only the state can grant freedom to the proper constituencies as it punishes others.  Okri’s analysis runs counter to the Obama worldview [7].

    Thus, again, in its third movement, this poem that claims to be a celebration of the presidential achievements of the 44th president offers only philosophical musings, and although some of those musings state an accurate position, there still remains no positive achievement that can attach to Obama.

    Fourth Movement:  Obama, Neither Here nor There 

    With complete accuracy once again, Okri’s speaker states baldly, “And so what Obama did and did not do is neither / Here nor there, in the great measure of things.”  Certainly, one who looks for positive achievements will find the blandness of this statement on the mark.  The speaker then adds that history will record what Obama did and also what he was unable to do.

    Then the narrative goes totally off the rails.  American racists, those “racists” who had elected this black president twice, threw up road blocks that limited this president’s accomplishments.  

    They wanted him to fail because being black he had no right to succeed.  The speaker implies that those American racists thought that this black president did not deserve liberation, meaning they thought he should be a slave—a ludicrous, utterly false claim. 

    The speaker then concludes with a weak implication that Obama is a hero, who demonstrated that it is possible to be “black and to be great”:  

    They wanted him to fail so they could
    Prove their case. Can’t you see it? But that’s what
    Heroes do: they come through in spite of all that blockage,
    All those obstacles thrown in the path of the self-liberated.
    That way the symbol would be tainted and would fail
    To be a beacon and a sign that it is possible
    To be black and to be great.

    The problem with this part of the narrative again is, on the one hand, that it is only an implication, not a positive statement making the claim that Obama was, in fact, a hero; on the other hand, it is obvious why the speaker would only imply these positive qualities to Obama:  the man is not a hero; indeed, he is a fraud [8].  

    Fraudulent Claims of Literary Prowess

    There is a certain bit of irony in having a poem attempt to celebrate the achievements of a colossal fraud [9].  Nowhere is the evidence of Obama’s characteristic as a fraud more evident than in his claims to have written his two books, Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope. 

    Jack Cashill’s “Who Wrote Dreams from My Father?” [10] offers convincing evidence that Barack Obama could not have written the books he claims to have authored.  And Cashill continues his analysis of Obama’s writing skills in “Who Wrote Audacity of Hope?” [11].

    Writing in the Illinois Review, Mark Rhoads [12] poses the same question regarding the Obama works.  Even Obama’s presidential library [13] will offer no evidence that the president possessed any literary skills.

    Clearly, Okri’s poem provides a mélange of attitudes toward its subject.  On the one hand, it wants to praise the outgoing president, but on the other, it simply can find nothing with which to do so. 

    That the poem concludes with a bald-face lie is unfortunate, but understandable.  Still, it cannot hide the truth:  that Barack Obama offered it no achievements, which it could celebrate; at best, only phony ones [14].

    Sources

    [1]  Ben Okri.  “Barack Obama: a celebration in verse.”  The Guardian.  January 19, 2017.

    [2] Alexander Pope.  Rape of the Lock and Other Poems.  Project Gutenberg.  October 18, 2003.

    [3]  Barack Obama. “We Are 5 Days From Fundamentally Transforming America.” YouTube.  Feb 2, 2012.

    [4] Jeffrey M. Jones. “In U.S., Obama Effect on Racial Matters Falls Short of Hopes.” Gallup. August 11, 2016.

    [5]  Ben Smith. “Obama on small-town Pa.: Clinging to religion, guns, xenophobia.”  Politico.  April 11, 2008.

    [6]   Nile Gardiner and Morgan Lorraine Roach.  “Barack Obama’s Top 10 Apologies: How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower.”  The Heritage Foundation.  June 2, 2009.

    [7]  Andrew Miller.  “Unriddling the Radical Worldview of President Obama.”  The Trumpet. January 2016.

    [8]  Andrew McCarthy.  “Obama’s Massive Fraud.”  National Review Online.  November 9, 2013.

    [9]  Jack Cashill.  “‘Roots,’ ‘Dreams,’ and the Unequal Punishment of Fraud.”  The American Spectator.  December 26, 2021.

    [10]   – – – . “Who Wrote Dreams From My Father?” American Thinker.  October 9, 2008.

    [11]  – – – .  “The Question the Times Should Have Asked ‘Writer’ Barack Obama.”  The American Spectator.  January 25, 2017.

    [12]  Mark Rhoads.  “Did Obama Write ‘Dreams from My Father or ‘Audacity of Hope’?”  Illinois Review. October 16, 2008.

    [13] Lolly Bowean.  “Without archives on site, how will Obama Center benefit area students, scholars?”  Chicago Tribune. October 8, 2017.

    [14]  Jennifer Rubin.  “Obama’s phony accomplishments leave us worse off.”  Washington Post.  Feb. 12, 2016.

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  • Sharon Olds’ “The Victims”

    Image: Sharon Olds – Illustration by Rebecca Clarke – The New Yorker

    Sharon Olds’ “The Victims”

    In her customary fashion, poetaster Sharon Olds offers up this deeply flawed, dishonest hit-piece, “The Victims,” which does little more for humanity than showcase a handful of stark images.  

    Introduction with Text of  “The Victims”

    According to noted poetry critic, Helen Vendler, Sharon Olds’ poetry comes across as  “self- indulgent, sensationalist, and even pornographic.”  And as former poet laureate Billy Collins averred:  Olds is “a poet of sex and the psyche” “infamous for her subject matter alone.”  

    And even though Collins attempted to add some faint praise, “but her closer readers know her as a poet of constant linguistic surprise,” those linguistic surprises consisting of stark images only function to undermine her attempt to produce any genuine poetry.

    Although “The Victims” is one of Olds’ least “pornographic” efforts, the piece clearly demonstrates egotistical self-indulgence and egregious sensationalism.  Such writing smacks more of loose-mused regurgitation than real cogitation on genuine emotion. 

    This unhappy piece consists of 26 uneven lines of free verse that sit in a lump chunk on the page and suffer from the customary Oldsian haphazard line breaks.

    The Victims

    When Mother divorced you, we were glad. She took it and
    took it in silence, all those years and then
    kicked you out, suddenly, and her
    kids loved it. Then you were fired, and we
    grinned inside, the way people grinned when
    Nixon’s helicopter lifted off the South
    Lawn for the last time. We were tickled
    to think of your office taken away,
    your secretaries taken away,
    your lunches with three double bourbons,
    your pencils, your reams of paper. Would they take your
    suits back, too, those dark
    carcasses hung in your closet, and the black
    noses of your shoes with their large pores?
    She had taught us to take it, to hate you and take it
    until we pricked with her for your
    annihilation, Father. Now I
    pass the bums in doorways, the white
    slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their
    suits of compressed silt, the stained
    flippers of their hands, the underwater
    fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the
    lanterns lit, and I wonder who took it and
    took it from them in silence until they had
    given it all away and had nothing
    left but this.

    Commentary on “The Victims”

    The piece breaks into two parts: the first is a description of how the speaker and her family felt way back a few decades when she was a child, and the second part jumps to what the speaker observes and thinks as an adult.

    First Movement:  Hindsight Sometimes Less Than 20/20 

    The speaker of the poem is an adult looking back at the break up of her family roughly around the time that her mother divorced her father. The speaker is addressing the father, telling him how glad she and the family were after the mother divorced the father.  

    The speaker and her siblings were glad because she “took it // in silence, all those years.” What she, and perhaps they, silently endured is left up to the reader to imagine, and that omission is a major flaw that leads the poem astray.  

    No two divorces are alike.  By leaving such an important motive to the imagination of the reader, the speaker weakens the thrust of her accusations against the father. The only hint of the father’s misdeeds is that he enjoyed three alcoholic beverages with his lunch.  

    Admittedly, that could present a problem, but by no means does it always do so.  Some individuals can handle a few drinks better than others, and the fact that the father seemed to have functioned in his job for a considerable period of time hints that he might have been competent in his job.

    On the other hand, the mother influenced her children in a grossly negative way, causing them to hate their father and wish him dead. 

    Apparently, the mother teaches her children to hate their father simply because he had three double bourbons for lunch or so we must assume because no other accusation is leveled against the poor man. 

    Maybe the father was a cruel alcoholic, who beat the mother and children, but there is no evidence to support that idea. And if that were the case, stark images of bruises and broken bones would surely have made an appearance in the little drama.

    The father was fired from his job, but only after the mother kicked him out. Would he have been able to keep his job to that point in his life, if he had been an out of control, cruel drunk?  Perhaps he became depressed and without purpose after being forced to leave his family and sank further into alcohol. 

    The gratuitous allusion to “Nixon’s helicopter,” carrying the newly resigned president from office, further inserts the nastiness of a political hit-piece, adding nothing to the drama except the suggestion that the family likely voted for Democrats.

    One has to wonder if the speaker and her fellow travelers would have “grinned” so readily, if a helicopter had lifted off the South Lawn carrying  Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton.

    So the reader has no evidence that the father was guilty of anything, but the mother taught the kids to hate the father and wish for his death. The mother comes across as a less sympathetic character than the father.

    Second Movement:  Appalling Prejudice Revealed

    The speaker now begins her report on what she sees and how she thinks in her current life situation that has been tainted by her past.  She begins to observe homeless men sleeping in doorways. 

    It becomes clear that it is those homeless men in the doorway who are reminding the speaker of her father getting kicked out of their home and getting fired from his job.  

    The speaker then speculates about those men about whom readers can be sure she knows absolutely nothing.  She wonders about the lives of those homeless men, whom she calls “bums.”  

    She wonders if their families “took it” from those men the way her family supposedly took it from her father.  But again, the reader remains clueless about what it is the family “took.” 

    What an arrogant reaction! Without one whit of evidence that these “bums” did anything to anyone, the speaker simply presumes that they are like her father, who lost it all because of what he (and now they) supposedly did.

    But the reader still does not even know what the father did. They do know what the mother did; she taught her children to hate the father and wish him dead. 

    Stark, Colorful Images

    This poem, like many of Sharon Olds’ poems, offers some colorful descriptions.  The father’s business suits are rendered “dark / caresses” hanging the closet.  His shoes sport “black / noses //with their large pores.”  

    Those homeless men are name called “bums” because they are lying “in doorways.”  Their bodies are dehumanized and portrayed as “white / slugs.” 

    Those slugs shine “through slits” in compacted dirt, revealing their compromised hygiene after being homeless for a protracted length of time.  Their hands resemble “stained / flippers,” again dehumanized.  

    Their eyes remind this flippant speaker, who lacks compassion for her fellow human beings, of ships that have sunken with their “lanterns lit.”

    Would that all of those colorful images resided in a better place and without the lack of humanity this speaker reveals about herself.   Those “linguistic surprises,” however, function only to render the speaker and the so-called victims as the actual perpetrators of despicable acts.

    Although the speaker wishes to foist bad  behavior onto first her father and then onto homeless men, she cannot escape the rebuttal that she has failed to indict her father and that she knows nothing about those homeless “bums.” 

    This ugly piece remains questionable and appears to have been created solely for the purpose of showcasing a handful of stark, colorful images.

  • Angela Manalang Gloria’s “To the Man I Married”

    Image: Angela Manalang Gloria and her husband

    Angela Manalang Gloria’s “To the Man I Married”

    Angela Manalang Gloria’s poem “To the Man I Married” presents an extended metaphor in which the speaker likens her love for her husband to her existential dependence on the earth. 

    Introduction and Text of “To the Man I Married”

    This metaphor functions on both physical and spiritual levels, suggesting that her partner sustains and orients her life in a manner analogous to the natural elements necessary for survival.

    To the Man I Married

    I

    You are my earth and all the earth implies:
    The gravity that ballasts me in space,
    The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
    For food and shelter against devouring days.

    You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
    And sets my north and south, my east and west,
    You are the final, elemented clay
    The driven heart must turn to for its rest.

    If in your arms that hold me now so near
    I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon
    As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
    Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,

    You who are earth, O never doubt that I
    Need you no less because I need the sky!

    II

    I cannot love you with a love
            That outcompares the boundless sea,
    For that were false, as no such love
            And no such ocean can ever be.
    But I can love you with a love
            As finite as the wave that dies
    And dying holds from crest to crest
            The blue of everlasting skies.

    Section I

    The first section of the poem adheres to the formal structure of the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet, consisting of three quatrains and a concluding couplet.

    First Quatrain: The Husband as Life-Sustaining Force

    You are my earth and all the earth implies:
    The gravity that ballasts me in space,
    The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
    For food and shelter against devouring days.

    The speaker opens with a striking declaration, asserting her husband’s indispensable role in her existence by comparing him to the earth itself. The metaphor extends through a catalogue of essential elements: gravity, air, land, and sustenance. 

    These earthly necessities are paralleled with emotional and material support offered by her husband, suggesting that her survival—both physical and emotional—depends as much on him as it does on the natural world.

    Second Quatrain: He Provides Orientation and Final Rest

    You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
    And sets my north and south, my east and west,
    You are the final, elemented clay
    The driven heart must turn to for its rest.

    The second quatrain deepens the metaphor, portraying the husband as the source of direction and purpose in the speaker’s life. The reference to cardinal directions implies that her sense of order and orientation derives from their shared life. 

    The closing lines evoke mortality and rest, implying that just as the earth will eventually receive her physical body in death, her husband provides emotional and spiritual repose during life.

    Third Quatrain: Acknowledging Other Affections

    If in your arms that hold me now so near
    I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon
    As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
    Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,

    Here, the speaker introduces a subtle shift. While affirming her deep attachment to her husband, she also acknowledges her intellectual and spiritual aspirations. 

    The allusion to Helicon, a mountain sacred to the Muses in Greek mythology, evokes poetic inspiration. Her longing for the transcendent does not diminish her love for her husband; rather, it coexists with it, just as rooted trees still reach toward the sun.

    The Couplet: Coexistence of Earthly and Celestial Needs

    You who are earth, O never doubt that I
    Need you no less because I need the sky!

    The final couplet affirms the central thesis of the poem: the speaker’s need for transcendence (symbolized by “the sky”) does not negate her need for the grounding, stabilizing presence of her husband (symbolized by “the earth”). 

    Instead, both are essential, suggesting a balanced view of human experience as encompassing both the corporeal and the aspirational.

    Section II

    The second part of “To the Man I Married” diverges from the sonnet form and appears in two quatrains, adopting a more reflective tone. Here, the speaker qualifies the grand metaphors of the first section with a more tempered, realistic assessment of love.

    First Quatrain: Rejection of Hyperbolic Metaphors

    I cannot love you with a love
    That outcompares the boundless sea,
    For that were false, as no such love
    And no such ocean can ever be.

    In this stanza, the speaker resists the temptation to describe her love through hyperbole. She dismisses the comparison to the “boundless sea” as false, recognizing the limitations of human emotion and language. 

    This moment of self-awareness introduces a more grounded view of romantic love.

    Second Quatrain: Finite Love Reflecting the Infinite

    But I can love you with a love
    As finite as the wave that dies
    And dying holds from crest to crest
    The blue of everlasting skies.

    Although she renounces the oceanic metaphor, the speaker reintroduces the image of water through the wave. Unlike the sea, the wave is finite and mortal, yet it captures and reflects the sky’s infinity. 

    In this subtle turn, Gloria suggests that even within human limitations, love can embody and reflect transcendence.

  • W. H. Auden’s “Doggerel by a Senior Citizen”

    Image: WH Auden in the Tom Quadrangle at Christ Church College, Oxford © Camera Pres 

    W. H. Auden’s “Doggerel by a Senior Citizen”

    The speaker in Auden’s “Doggerel by a Senior Citizen” is a man of certain age, warning listeners that what he is about to spew is doggerel.  But the claim is made in ironic jest; what the “doggerelist” is about to spew is the bitter truth, or at least in his humble opinion, about societal progress.

    Introduction with Text from “Doggerel by a Senior Citizen”

    By ironically jesting that his utterance will be only a bit of doggerel, the speaker in W. H. Auden’s “Doggerel by a Senior Citizen” lightens any blame he may receive, or any pushback against his views.    The views and the biting criticism remain perfectly in line with the poet’s views as expressed in his utterly serious works, such as “The Unknown Citizen.”

    Doggerel by a Senior Citizen

    Our earth in 1969
    Is not the planet I call mine,
    The world, I mean, that gives me strength
    To hold off chaos at arm’s length.

    My Eden landscapes and their climes
    Are constructs from Edwardian times,
    When bath-rooms took up lots of space,
    And, before eating, one said Grace.

    The automobile, the aeroplane,
    Are useful gadgets, but profane:
    The enginry of which I dream
    Is moved by water or by steam.

    Reason requires that I approve
    The light-bulb which I cannot love:
    To me more reverence-commanding
    A fish-tail burner on the landing.

    My family ghosts I fought and routed,
    Their values, though, I never doubted:
    I thought the Protestant Work-Ethic
    Both practical and sympathetic.

    When couples played or sang duets,
    It was immoral to have debts:
    I shall continue till I die
    To pay in cash for what I buy.

    The Book of Common Prayer we knew
    Was that of 1662:
    Though with-it sermons may be well,
    Liturgical reforms are hell.

    Sex was of course — it always is —
    The most enticing of mysteries,
    But news-stands did not then supply
    Manichean pornography.

    Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,
    Like learning not to belch or fart:
    I cannot settle which is worse,
    The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.

    Nor are those Ph.D’s my kith,
    Who dig the symbol and the myth:
    I count myself a man of letters
    Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.

    Dare any call Permissiveness
    An educational success?
    Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,
    Compelled to study Greek and Latin.

    Though I suspect the term is crap,
    There is a Generation Gap,
    Who is to blame? Those, old or young,
    Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.

    But Love, at least, is not a state
    Either en vogue or out-of-date,
    And I’ve true friends, I will allow,
    To talk and eat with here and now.

    Me alienated? Bosh! It’s just
    As a sworn citizen who must
    Skirmish with it that I feel
    Most at home with what is Real.

    Commentary on “Doggerel by a Senior Citizen”

    Claiming to be offering a piece of doggerel, this speaker/senior-citizen offers his personal evaluation about what things are like in the year 1969.

    First Movement:   A Different Planet from Yesteryear

    Our earth in 1969
    Is not the planet I call mine,
    The world, I mean, that gives me strength
    To hold off chaos at arm’s length.

    My Eden landscapes and their climes
    Are constructs from Edwardian times,
    When bath-rooms took up lots of space,
    And, before eating, one said Grace.

    The speaker begins by alerting his listeners that he is reporting from the year 1969, and he then makes clear through a bit of exaggeration that the earth no longer represents the same “planet” upon which he had formerly existed.   This new “earth” “planet” “world” has become a place of mayhem, and the disorder is so bad that he has difficulty keeping it at bay or out of his own life.

    The speaker suggests that his own preference is for the Edwardian age [1], a period of prosperity and especially important in the areas of fashion and art.  The speaker hints that religion was still a central feature in the family, as they said “Grace” before dining.

    The speaker makes it clear that for him those times were “[his] Eden”—likely he does mean prelapsarian Eden [2]. He employs the rest of his discourse to show how the times in which he is now living can be considered quite postlapsarian [3]

    Second Movement:  Nostalgia Outsmarts Novelty

    The automobile, the aeroplane,
    Are useful gadgets, but profane:
    The enginry of which I dream
    Is moved by water or by steam.

    Reason requires that I approve
    The light-bulb which I cannot love:
    To me more reverence-commanding
    A fish-tail burner on the landing.

    The speaker refers to the common inventions of the day, calling the mode of travel by car and plane “useful” but “profane.”  He still longs for the steam engine  and old-timey wind sailing.

    Although he feels that he is likely required to accept used of the “light-bulb,” he cannot bring himself to “love” the object.  He prefers the gaslight resembling a fish tail, which resulted from two gas jets spewing through two holes that fanned out and formed the fish tail shaped flame.  Nostalgia often overcomes efficacy when it comes to every-day useful appliances.

    Third Movement:  From the Work Ethic to Debt Accumulation

    My family ghosts I fought and routed,
    Their values, though, I never doubted:
    I thought the Protestant Work-Ethic
    Both practical and sympathetic.

    When couples played or sang duets,
    It was immoral to have debts:
    I shall continue till I die
    To pay in cash for what I buy.

    The speaker has overcome the idiosyncrasies of family life, coming to love those whom he had earlier found unpleasant; he has, however, always accepted the basic moral rectitude of those family members.  They adhered to the “Protestant Work-Ethic,” which the speaker has always deemed practical and proper.

    Back during the time when party entertainment often consisted of “couples [playing or singing] duets,” the society deemed acquiring debt an immoral act.  The speaker assures his listener that to his dying day he will continue to accept that societal feature and continue to pay “in cash for what I buy.”

    Fourth Movement:  The Weakness of Liturgical Reforms

    The Book of Common Prayer we knew
    Was that of 1662:
    Though with-it sermons may be well,
    Liturgical reforms are hell.

    Sex was of course — it always is —
    The most enticing of mysteries,
    But news-stands did not then supply
    Manichean pornography.

    The speaker remembers that before certain religious reforms a “Book of Common Prayer” held sway, and it dated all the way back to 1662, during the era of the Restoration of King Charles II [4].

    Religious reformation always comes about through controversy.  Those who have become accustomed to certain practices of worship distain any change and thus argue against “liturgical reforms” [5].  This speaker has already placed his likely position on such reforms; he naturally comes down solidly on the side against them, labeling such actions “hell.”

    The speaker then cites “sex,” which is always engulfed in “mysteries,” as an example of one phase of life that has suffered because of “liturgical reforms”:  the obnoxious duality of “Manichean pornography” now sits on “news-stands,” whereas in the more modest past, such sights would not have been tolerated.

    Fifth Movement:  The Problem with Language Study

    Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,
    Like learning not to belch or fart:
    I cannot settle which is worse,
    The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.

    Nor are those Ph.D’s my kith,
    Who dig the symbol and the myth:
    I count myself a man of letters
    Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.

    The speaker now tackles “Speech,” the art of the word, the use of letters that creates literary art.  But first he delves into the vulgar act of belching or farting, which along with the “mannerly” use of language, would not be acceptable.  Children would then learn to avoid the grossness involved in such human effusions.

    The speaker says he has not decided which art form is more vile: “the Anti-Novel” or “Free Verse.”  The proliferation of those holding doctoral degrees, particularly the Ph.D., does not impress this speaker; he finds this who revel in “myth” and “symbol” hold little interest for him.

    He contrasts himself with those book-learned fellows: he assures his listeners that he himself is “a man of letters.”  But instead of trying to appeal to the vulgar, profane masses, he strives to compose for “his betters.”  He remains a bit humble in his claim by inserting “or hopes to.”

    Sixth Movement:  Lack of Discipline

    Dare any call Permissiveness
    An educational success?
    Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,
    Compelled to study Greek and Latin.

    Though I suspect the term is crap,
    There is a Generation Gap,
    Who is to blame? Those, old or young,
    Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.

    The speaker then refers to permissiveness as the bane of success in education.  He finds the old-fashioned disciplines focusing on learning “Greek and Latin” to be a much “saner” focus for the classroom.  He was such a student and now feels he has benefited for the rigor of such study of language.

    Mentioning the buzz-phrase of the late sixties “Generation Gap,” he says its likely a worthless expression, even though he does detect that such a thing exists.  But he wonders who is to blame for it? Is the the “old or young”?  But then he answers his question by asserting that both are to blame, that is, those who refuse to learn “their Mother-Tongue.”

    Seventh Movement:  Love and Reality

    But Love, at least, is not a state
    Either en vogue or out-of-date,
    And I’ve true friends, I will allow,
    To talk and eat with here and now.

    Me alienated? Bosh! It’s just
    As a sworn citizen who must
    Skirmish with it that I feel
    Most at home with what is Real.

    The speaker concludes with some uplifting thoughts:  love, for example, never goes out of style, and he retains good friends with whom he can pleasantly dine and converse.

    He seems to reject the notion that he might feel “alienated,” but he does suggest that the loosening of societal mores causes him to “skirmish” with it all.  He insists that he feels most comfortable with “what is Real.”  He does not equivocate with what he thinks that reality entails; he has just laid it all out in his piece of “doggerel.”

    Sources

    [1]  Curators.  “Edwardian Era Facts: Daily Life Of People, Society.” Victorian Era.  Accessed November 26, 2023.

    [2]  Curators.  “prelapsarian.”  vDict.pro. Accessed November 26, 2023.

    [3]  Curators. “postlapsarian.”  Merriam-Webster.  Accessed November 26, 2023.

    [4]  History.com Editors.  “The English Restoration begins.”  History. May 21, 2020.

    [5]  Helen Hull Hitchcock.  “Why the Liturgical Reform? or, ‘What if we just say no to any liturgical change?’” Adoremus. November 11, 2020.

  • Al Gore’s “One thin September soon”

    Image:  Steven F. Hayward: Exposed! The global warming campaign enters its emperor’s-new-clothes phase.

    Al Gore’s “One thin September soon”

    Climate change alarmist Al Gore joked to his publisher that W. B. Yeats had penned the so-called poem “One thin September soon” in Gore’s latest book; sadly, the publisher seemed to fall for it, before Gore admitted to scribbling it.

    Introduction with Text of “One thin September soon”

    The former vice-president’s untitled piece appears in his book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, which purportedly offers the antidote to “global warming.”   Al Gore’s untitled verse is chopped up into seven three-line sets, which may charitably be labeled tercets. 

    In this farcical piece of doggerel, the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) fanatic has his speaker pontificate from the position of a shepherd, who is crying to the world about the impending doom that human mankind is bringing on the world through the use of fossil fuels. 

    Through his many pontifications and written tracts on the politically fabricated issue of global warming, the former failed presidential candidate shows that he fancies himself a kind of modern-day John-the-Baptist crying in the wilderness, which is growing hotter and drier year after year, despite the fact that there has been no “warming” since the mid-1990s [1].

    And now temperatures have actually started to cool [2], according to official NASA global temperature data.

    Never mind the inconvenient facts, Gore heralds his speaker to bark loudly about the concocted problem and to offer his saintly wisdom in his untitled “poem”—wonder when Gore will publish a collection of his poetry.  Likely, never.  It seems that the political gasbag has penned only one “poem” which barely qualifies as doggerel.

    One thin September soon

    One thin September soon
    A floating continent disappears
    In midnight sun

    Vapors rise as
    Fever settles on an acid sea
    Neptune’s bones dissolve

    Snow glides from the mountain
    Ice fathers floods for a season
    A hard rain comes quickly

    Then dirt is parched
    Kindling is placed in the forest
    For the lightning’s celebration

    Unknown creatures
    Take their leave, unmourned
    Horsemen ready their stirrups

    Passion seeks heroes and friends
    The bell of the city
    On the hill is rung

    The shepherd cries
    The hour of choosing has arrived
    Here are your tools


    Video:  Al Gore Reads “One thin September soon”  

    Image:  Polar Bears on Ice Cap (Justin Hofman/Barcroft Media/Landov)

    Commentary on “One thin September soon”

    Supposedly well read in scientific literature, climate alarmist Al Gore gets the science of the Earth wrong as he has his speaker claim to be “crying in the wilderness” like some modern day John-the-Climate-Change-Baptist.

    First Tercet: Beginning with a Fantasy

    One thin September soon
    A floating continent disappears
    In midnight sun

    Gore’s speaker begins his piece by asserting that soon one of these Septembers—and it will be a “thin” September, not like the usual thick Septembers—the midnight sun will embrace the disappearance of a continent that floats.

    This first assertion presents several problems:

    1. it must be referring only to the continents at the Earth’s extreme north and south;
    2. floating continents [3]  exist only in fantasy [4],
    3. he has to be referring to Antarctica because the Arctic is not a continent at all;
    4. the midnight sun refers to a phenomenon that occurs in summer at each pole when the sun does not set.

    For the midnight sun reference, the speaker has to be referring to the non-continent Arctic because he names the month of September. There is midnight sun in the first three weeks of September at the North Pole but not at the South, whose summer is from December 22 to March 21.

    This confusion of poles gets the verse off to an inauspicious start. 

    On the one hand, the reader might remember that the composer of this pigswill is a man who is supposedly steeped in scientific studies in support of his global warming theory; yet, he engages a non-scientific fantasy and confuses the facts regarding activities at the Earth’s poles.

    On the other hand, if one considers Gore’s academic accomplishment in the study of science —”According to his Harvard transcript, he earned a D in natural science his sophomore year”—[5], his error-prone nonsense makes perfect sense.

    Second Tercet: The Conundrum of Postmodern Claptrap

    Vapors rise as
    Fever settles on an acid sea
    Neptune’s bones dissolve

    According to global warming proponents, ocean waters are becoming acidic because of the lethal effects that the warming is having on various sea creatures, including coral and urchins. Gore’s speaker refers to these sea creatures as Neptune’s bones that are dissolving.

    The absurd conflation of the bones of a mythological god and sea creatures bends the piece to the frowziness of postmodernism, where nothing matters because nothing makes sense anyway.  Yet this man of hard science wants to influence politicians and governments to make policies that will affect all citizens worldwide.

    Third Tercet: A Pile of Images

    Snow glides from the mountain
    Ice fathers floods for a season
    A hard rain comes quickly

    Because of the warming, snows begin to loosen and slide down mountains while melting ice gluts the ocean, and then the rains begin, those horrid rains! And they are “hard” [6] rains—recall that other noted poetaster/plagiarist Bob Dylan [7].

    The politician-cum-poetaster then makes those three claims of the melting that the earth is enduring: all obviously caused by the heat, all slapped together without punctuation or conjunction, possibly because everything is happening almost simultaneously. As the snow and ice suddenly become a hard rain, the reader might then suspect the prompt need of an ark.

    Fourth Tercet: As Lightning Celebrates

    Then dirt is parched
    Kindling is placed in the forest
    For the lightning’s celebration

    However, the next scene takes the reader to dry land where dirt is parched, and out of the blue, someone has placed small slips of wood in a forest where lightning can catch them to flame as it celebrates.

    The doggerelist does not reveal who placed that “[k]indling” in the forest so that lightning could set it aflame for its celebration. Why, one might wonder, would lightning be “celebrating” anyway? But by now the gentle reader has become aware that taking anything in this piece seriously is a fool’s errand.

    Fifth Tercet: Getting Ready for the Apocalypse

    Unknown creatures
    Take their leave, unmourned
    Horsemen ready their stirrups

    There are many species of animals on Antarctica, but Gore’s speaker chooses to claim that they are unknown as they “[t]ake their leave.”  It seems that such a situation would merit some drama, instead of the faint, euphemistic “take their leave.” 

    But then they are unmourned. He, no doubt, would at least have them be mourned, despite their being unknown.  Perhaps the most bizarre and useless line in the entire piece is, “Horsemen ready their stirrups.” There seems to be no reason for that line, for it connects to nothing. 

    And if the bizarre notion of an allusion to the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” springs to mind, it will offer no resolution of any kind. The Book of Revelation has suffered many absurd interpretations, and if Gore’s speaker is attempting to add another, it results in the lamest of the lame.

    Sixth Tercet: A Gorean City on the Hill

    Passion seeks heroes and friends
    The bell of the city
    On the hill is rung

    The brave shepherd is passionately seeking others who will help him get his message out, that the earth is becoming a scorched, iceless dustbowl with the oceans rising. The speaker/shepherd now credits himself for ringing that all important bell in that all important place—that “city / On the hill.” The solipsism of this piece is nausea invoking.  

    Could the city on the hill be that same place to which President Ronald Reagan [8] referred?

    A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.

    It is likely that Gore’s speaker does, in fact, refer to that same place, but for very different reasons, for the policies thus far suggested to stop global warming would stifle the individualism and freedom of all world citizens, especially those in Third-World nations.

    Seventh Tercet: The Shepherd Handing Over the Tools

    The shepherd cries
    The hour of choosing has arrived
    Here are your tools

    In the final three-line set, Gore’s speaker reports that he, as this good crying shepherd, is telling his listeners that the time for action is at hand, and he has hereby come to hand to them all the tools they need.

    This self-important, junk-science spewing “shepherd” is offering in his new book the necessary “tools” that his sheep will need as they waddle with him down this fantastical path to an Earth-saving global temperature. Whatever that is?

    (Please note: On Amazon, Fredrick P. Wilson, in his comment, “Ugly, Economically Disastrous, Green Choices,” offers a useful review of Gore’s book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.)

    Sources

    [1]  Prof. Don J. Easterbrook. “Global Cooling is Here.” Global Research. November 2, 2008.

    [2] Aaron Brown.  “Did You Know the Greatest Two-Year Global Cooling Event Just Took Place?”  RealClear Markets.  April 24, 2018.

    [3]  Dr. Christopher S. Baird.  “What keeps the continents floating on a sea of molten rock?”  Science Questions with Surprising Answers.  July 18, 2013.

    [4]  TV-Tropes: The All Devouring Pop-Culture Wiki.  “Floating Continent.”  Accessed November 20, 2023.

    [5]  College Fix Staff.  “Al Gore, Climate ‘Expert’, Bombed Science in College.”  The College Fix.  April 30, 2012.

    [6]   Bob Dylan.  “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.”  Genius.  Accessed November 20, 2023.

    [7]  Sean Michaels.  “Bob Dylan is ‘a Plagiarist’, claims Joni Mitchell.”  The Guardian.  April 23, 2010.

    [8] Ronald Reagan.  “Shining City on a Hill” – 1988 State of the Union .

    Image:  Al Gore – PoliNation Blog – Science 

    Video:  Excellent Lampoon of Gore’s Doggerel   

  • William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming”

    Image: William Butler Yeats – Howard Coster – National Portrait Galley, London

    William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming”

    William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” remains one of the most widely misunderstood poems of the 20th century. Many scholars and critics have failed to criticize the exaggeration in the first stanza and the absurd metaphor in the second stanza, which render a potentially fine poem a critical failure.

    Introduction with Text of “The Second Coming”

    Poems, in order to communicate, must be as logical as the purpose and content require. For example, if the poet wishes to comment on or criticize an issue, he must adhere to physical facts in his poetic drama. If the poet wishes to emote, equivocate, or demonstrate the chaotic nature of his cosmic thinking, he may legitimately do so without much seeming sense.

    For example, Robert Bly’s lines—”Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand / Reaches out and pulls him in” / / “The pond was lonely, or needed / Calcium, bones would do,”—are ludicrous [1] on every level.   Even if one explicates the speaker’s personifying the pond, the lines remain absurd, at least in part because if a person needs calcium, grabbing the bones of another human being will not take care of that deficiency. 

    The absurdity of a lake needing “calcium” should be abundantly clear on its face.  Nevertheless, the image of the lake grabbing a man may ultimately be accepted as the funny nonsense that it is.   William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” cannot be dismissed so easily; while the Yeats poem does not depict the universe as totally chaotic, it does bemoan that fact that events seem to be leading society to armageddon.

    The absurdity surrounding the metaphor of the “rough beast” in the Yeats poem renders the musing on world events without practical substance.

    The Second Coming

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
    Are full of passionate intensity. 

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
    The darkness drops again; but now I know   
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

    Commentary on “The Second Coming”

    William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” remains one of the most widely anthologized poems in world literature.  Yet its hyperbole in the first stanza and ludicrous “rough beast” metaphor in the second stanza result in a blur of unworkable speculation.

    First Stanza: Sorrowful over Chaos

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
    Are full of passionate intensity. 

    The speaker is sorrowing over the chaos of world events that have left in their wake many dead people.  Clashes of groups of ideologues have wreaked havoc, and much blood shed has smeared the tranquil lives of innocent people who wish to live quiet, productive lives. 

    The speaker likens the seemingly out of control situation of society to a falconer losing control of the falcon as he attempts to tame it.   Everyday life has become chaotic as corrupt governments have spurred revolutions.  Lack of respect for leadership has left a vacuum which is filled with force and violence.

    The overstated claim that “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity” should have alerted the poet that he needed to rinse out the generic hyperbole in favor of more accuracy on the world stage.  

    Such a blanket, unqualified statement, especially in a poem, lacks the ring of truth:  it simply cannot be true that the “best lack all conviction.”  Surely, some the best still retain some level of conviction, or else improvement could never be expected.  

    It also cannot be true that all the worst are passionate; some of the worst are likely not passionate at all but remain sycophantic, indifferent followers.  Any reader should be wary of such all-inclusive, absolutist statements in both prose and poetry.  

    Anytime a writer subsumes an entirety with the terms “all,” “none,” “everything,” “everyone,” “always,” or “never,” the reader should question the statement for its accuracy.  All too often such terms are signals for stereotypes, which produce the same inaccuracy as groupthink.

    Second Stanza: What Revelation?

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
    The darkness drops again; but now I know   
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

    The idea of “some revelation” leads the speaker to the mythological second coming of Christ.  So he speculates on what a second coming might entail.  However, instead of “Christ,” the speaker conjures the notion that an Egyptian-Sphinx-like character with ill-intent might arrive instead.  

    Therefore, in place of a second coming of godliness and virtue, as is the purpose of the original second coming, the speaker wonders:  what if the actual second coming will be more like an Anti-Christ?  What if all this chaos of bloodshed and disarray has been brought on by the opposite of Christian virtue?

    Postmodern Absurdity and the “Rough Beast”

    The “rough beast” in Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is an aberration of imagination, not a viable symbol for what Yeats’ speaker thought he was achieving in his critique of culture. If, as the postmodernists contend, there is no order [2] in the universe and nothing really makes any sense anyway, then it becomes perfectly fine to write nonsense. 

    Because this poet is a contemporary of modernism but not postmodernism [3], William Butler Yeats’ poetry and poetics do not quite devolve to the level of postmodern angst that blankets everything with the nonsensical.  Yet, his manifesto titled A Vision is, undoubtedly, one of the contributing factors to that line of meretricious ideology. 

    Hazarding a Guess Can Be Hazardous

    The first stanza of Yeats’ “The Second Coming” begins by metaphorically comparing a falconer losing control of the falcon to nations and governments losing control because of the current world disorder, in which “[t]hings fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” 

    Political factions employ these lines against their opposition during the time in which their opposition is in power, as they spew forth praise for their own order that somehow magically appears with their taking the seat of power.

    The poem has been co-opted by the political class so often that Dorian Lynskey, overviewing the poem in his essay, “‘Things fall apart’: the Apocalyptic Appeal of WB Yeats’s The Second Coming,” writes, “There was apparently no geopolitical drama to which it could not be applied” [4].

    The second stanza dramatizes the speaker’s musing about a revelation that has popped into his head, and he likens that revelation to the second coming of Christ; however, this time the coming, he speculates, may be something much different.  

    The speaker does not know what the second coming will herald, but he does not mind hazarding a dramatic guess about the possibility.   Thus, he guesses that the entity of a new “second coming” would likely be something that resembles the Egyptian sphinx; it would not be the return of the Christ with the return of virtue but perhaps its opposite—vice. 

    The speaker concludes his guess with an allusion to the birth of such an entity as he likens the Blessed Virgin Mother to the “rough beast.”   The Blessèd Virgin Mother, as a newfangled, postmodern creature, will be “slouching toward Bethlehem” because that is the location to which the first coming came.  

    The allusion to “Bethlehem” functions solely as a vague juxtaposition to the phrase “second coming” in hopes that the reader will make the connection that the first coming and the second coming may have something in common.  The speaker speculates that at this very moment wherein the speaker is doing his speculation some “rough beast” might be pregnant with the creature of the “second coming.” 

    And as the time arrives for the creature to be born, the rough beast will go “slouching” towards its lair to give birth to this “second coming” creature: “its hour come round at last” refers to the rough beast being in labor. 

    The Flaw of Yeats’ “The Second Coming” 

    The speaker then poses the nonsensical question: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”   In order to make the case that the speaker wishes to make, these last two lines should be restructured in one of two ways: 

    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to give birth? 

     or

    And what rough beast’s babe, its time come at last,
    Is in transport to Bethlehem to be born?

    An unborn being cannot “slouch” toward a destination.  The pregnant mother of the unborn being can “slouch” toward a destination.   But the speaker is not contemplating the nature of the rough beast’s mother; he is contemplating the nature of the rough beast itself.  

    The speaker does not suggest that the literal Sphinx will travel to Bethlehem. He is merely implying that a Sphinx-like creature might resemble the creature of the second coming.  Once an individual has discounted the return of Jesus the Christ as a literal or even spiritual fact, one might offer personal speculation about just what a second coming would look like. 

    It is doubtful that anyone would argue that the poem is dramatizing a literal birth, rather than a spiritual or metaphorical one.    It is also unreasonable to argue that the speaker of this poem—or Yeats for that matter—thought that the second coming actually referred to the Sphinx.   A ridiculous image develops from the fabrication of the Sphinx moving toward Bethlehem. Yeats was more prudent than that. 

    Exaggerated Importance of Poem

    William Butler Yeats composed a manifesto to display his worldview and poetics titled A Vision, in which he set down certain tenets of his thoughts on poetry, creativity, and world history.   Although seemingly taken quite seriously by some Yeatsian scholars, A Vision is of little value in understanding either meaning in poetry or the meaning of the world, particularly in terms of historical events.  

    An important example of Yeats’ misunderstanding of world cycles is his explanation of the cyclical nature of history, exemplified with what he called “gyres” (pronounced with a hard “g.”)  Two particular points in the Yeatsian explanation demonstrate the fallacy of his thinking:

    1. In his diagram, Yeats set the position of the gyres inaccurately; they should not be intersecting but instead one should rest  one on top of the other:  cycles shrink and enlarge in scope; they do not overlap, as they would have to do if the Yeatsian model were accurate. 

    Image :  Gyres – Inaccurate Configuration from A Vision

    Image:  Gyres –  Accurate Configuration

    2.  In the traditional Second Coming, Christ is figured to come again but as an adult, not as in infant as is implied in Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming.”

    Of great significance in Yeats’ poem is the “rough beast,” apparently the Anti-Christ, who has not been born yet.  And most problematic is that the rough beast is “slouch[ing] towards Bethlehem to be born.”  The question is, how can such a creature be slouching if it has not yet been born?  There is no indication the speaker wishes to attribute this second coming fiasco to the mother of the rough beast.

    This illogical event is never mentioned by critics who seem to accept the slouching as a possible occurrence.  On this score, it seems critics and scholars have lent the poem an unusually wide and encompassing poetic license.

    The Accurate Meaning of the Second Coming

    Paramahansa Yogananda has explained in depth the original, spiritual meaning of the phrase “the second coming”[5] which does not signify the literal coming again of Jesus the Christ, but the spiritual awakening of each individual soul to its Divine Nature through the Christ Consciousness.  

    Paramahansa Yogananda summarizes his two volume work The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You:

    In titling this work The Second Coming of Christ, I am not referring to a literal return of Jesus to earth . . . 

    A thousand Christs sent to earth would not redeem its people unless they themselves become Christlike by purifying and expanding their individual consciousness to receive therein the second coming of the Christ Consciousness, as was manifested in Jesus . . . 

    Contact with this Consciousness, experienced in the ever new joy of meditation, will be the real second coming of Christ—and it will take place right in the devotee’s own consciousness. (my emphasis added)

    Interestingly, knowledge of the meaning of that phrase “the second coming” as explained by Paramahansa Yogananda renders unnecessary the musings of Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”and most other speculation about the subject. Still, the poem as an artifact of 20th century thinking remains an important object for study. 

    Sources

    [1]  Linda Sue Grimes.  “Robert Bly’s ‘The Cat in the Kitchen’ and ‘Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter’.”  Linda’s Literary Home. December 24, 2025. 

    [2]  David Solway.  “The Origins of Postmodernitis.”  PJ Media.  March 25, 2011.  

    [3]  Linda Sue Grimes. “Poetry and Politics under the Influence of Postmodernism.” Linda’s Literary Home.  Accessed December 3, 2025.

    [4]  Dorian Lynsey. “‘Things fall apart’: the Apocalyptic Appeal of WB Yeats’s The Second Coming.” The Guardian.  May 30, 2020.

    [5]  Editors. “The Truth Hidden in the Gospels.  Self-Realization Fellowship. Accessed October 27, 2023.

  • Malcolm M. Sedam’s “The Hill Maiden”

    Image: Malcolm M. Sedam

    Malcolm M. Sedam’s “The Hill Maiden”

    In his poem, “The Hill Maiden,” Malcolm M. Sedam has created a speaker voicing cheerful vaticination that his teenage angst-ridden protégé will one day shed her nihilism and burst into life affirming joy.  The best teachers are those who can inspire as well as instruct their students.  This poem represents a stellar example of that kind of inspirational educator.

    Introduction and Text of “The Hill Maiden”

    Malcolm M. Sedam‘s “The Hill Maiden” features a teacher dramatizing his observations about a particularly inquisitive but melancholy student.  His ultimate purpose is to instill in the student the notion that she will ultimately be able to appreciate the life that she seems to disdain.

    The poem plays out in three movements of unrimed stanzas.  This organization allows the speaker to touch lightly on the physical reality of the subject but then move more intensely to the mental and finally the spiritual possibility of the subject’s inclinations. 

    Because the speaker can only infer certain facts about his student, the poem remains metaphorically and imagistically implicative  instead of unequivocally literal.  For example, the teacher has no exact idea what the student does at her home; thus he places her in an image of “moving among the phantom rocks of reverie.”  

    The teacher/speaker knows from the negativity the student has been expressing to him that she mentally resides among hardness that causes her to imagine that things are worse than they are.

    Mentally she travels like a rocket through her ghostly musings until night fall when she sleeps but likely gets little rest, accounting for the nervous, brittle energy the educator perceives in his young scholar.

    Likely the adolescent girl is simply suffering the turbulence of teenage angst through which most individuals of that age group must travel.  But the best, most effective teachers are those who can inspire as well as instruct their students.  This poem represents a stellar example of that kind of inspirational educator.

    As an educator, Mr. Malcolm M. Sedam wrote poems to many of his students, always with the goal of inspiring them to high thinking and plain living.  Mr. Sedam once said he felt that his function as an educator was “to kick the dirt off of his students.”  By that he meant to help them see life more clearly without the fog of stereotypes, prejudice, and provincialism.  

    The Hill Maiden

    (for Linda, over in the valley)

    She is moving among the phantom
    Rocks of reverie hurtling through
    By mind bringing days into darkness
    Where the pull of growth rings
    The heart and spurs the soul

    Where her wish strings questions
    In the mysterious night of snow
    Bringing a promise that only the hills can sing.
    Her smile waits behind a frown of swords
    That rend her days

    In the melancholy of the deep valley
    Of dreams where she lives among flowers
    Gathering her moods that may bring peace
    Once the sorrow of lonely distance
    Has closed on hands—

    The same hands that Zen-like reach
    To answer each knock at the door of her heart
    Broken to be mended by tender time.
    Her mind is speeding through a galaxy
    Of intensity where the blood rose

    Will speak to her frozen will
    All forgiven by decree in warring winds—
    The nature of her plight?
    Without wings
    She will still spring into flight.

    Commentary on “The Hill Maiden”

    Malcolm M. Sedam’s “The Hill Maiden” features a teacher, who is also a practicing poet, dramatizing his observance of an inquisitively intelligent but extremely melancholy student.  

    His only purpose is to instill in the student the notion that she will ultimately be able to appreciate the life that she seems now to disdain.

    First Movement:  Dreaming amongst the Hills

    She is moving among the phantom
    Rocks of reverie hurtling through
    By mind bringing days into darkness
    Where the pull of growth rings
    The heart and spurs the soul

    Where her wish strings questions
    In the mysterious night of snow
    Bringing a promise that only the hills can sing.

    The speaker begins by placing the object of his speculative musing in an image that implies sharp but dream-like rigidity.  Rocks appear ghost-like through a dream-scape as they bewilder the mental musings of the young girl with whom the mature educator is engaging both as a poetry mentor as well as a teacher.

    Teachers often counsel their students who seek out their advice and direction even in issues outside of the academic sphere as well as within the educational arena.  Those teachers who must essentially become counselors will either direct the students to other professionals, or they will attempt to offer their own gleanings from their life experience.

    The teacher in this poem demonstrates that he is the latter kind of teacher, and he has given the mind of the young student some serious analysis.  Thus he not only describes her environment, but he also speculates and then foreshadows what is likely to befall the girl once she is able to erase her current adolescent fog.

    Until that glowing day arrives, however, the speaker sees that the girl’s maturing process weighs heavily on her heart and soul.  She is full of questions brought on by the mystery of life.  

    The “snow” that brings beauty as it covers the hills also brings bitter cold and slippery conditions the cause the girl to miss the music that her hill-valley home affords her.

    By pointing out these images of beauty and placing them a context of mystery and difficulty, the speaker hopes to allow his charge to contemplate the possibility that life is real and offers hope to those who search its reaches with an open mind and cheerful heart.

    Second Movement:  Frowning Swords

    Her smile waits behind a frown of swords
    That rend her days

    In the melancholy of the deep valley
    Of dreams where she lives among flowers
    Gathering her moods that may bring peace
    Once the sorrow of lonely distance
    Has closed on hands—

    The same hands that Zen-like reach
    To answer each knock at the door of her heart
    Broken to be mended by tender time.

    The speaker has observed the teen’s unwillingness to show a cheerful countenance.   Her bitterness “behind a frown of swords” likely often gives the mentor a shudder at the likelihood that the girl is suffering intensely.

    No doubt, he believes that at this point in her life, she should be dancing merrily among “flowers” and allowing her sorrowful moods to dissolve in the “deep valley of dreams.”

    But again, he returns to prognostication that once she has learned to fold her hands in wonder and listen to the love that knocks at the “door of her heart,” her melancholy will be rendered null and void as “tender time” moves her through the rough spots of her anguish.

    Again, the speaker chooses beauty—”flowers gathering”—to balance the “frown.”  He offers the image of the heart’s door to harmonize with the environment that will reach her with the “Zen-like” hands of mystery and the ultimate gain-of-wisdom.  

    Like a Zen koan, the riddle of life will remain before her as she continues to search for answers to her perplexing questions.  

    Third Movement:  Springing into Flight

    Her mind is speeding through a galaxy
    Of intensity where the blood rose

    Will speak to her frozen will
    All forgiven by decree in warring winds—
    The nature of her plight?
    Without wings
    She will still spring into flight.

    Finally, the speaker makes his most striking vaticination after asserting that his young charge has a strong mind but also a tender heart that is quick to show intense emotion.  

    That the “blood rose” will speak itself undeniably to the girl’s will portends that all of her negativity and nihilism will be “forgiven” as she continues to navigate through the conflicts that life bestows on all searching souls.

    Then the speaker offers the question that he is likely very content to answer.  The frustrating situation that befuddles the young scholar’s mind and heart has been implied by all the imagery that went before, but then what will eventually be the path chosen by and/or for the student?   

    She will be able to navigate through all the trials and tribulations as a bird that so easily lifts it wings to the wind and takes to the air through the abundant space of sky.

    The speaker is not so naïve as to insist that such navigation will come easily, but he does remain assured that the path will open to the girl, and she will become willing to follow it. Thus the speaker can conclude affirmatively that “Without wings, she will still spring into flight.”

    Offered by a beloved and well-respected mentor, such faith in a young scholar’s ability to navigate life is bound to redound in blessings, despite the pitfalls and rough spots that her life, no doubt, will place sphinx-life before her mind and heart.