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  • Gary Clark’s “Mary’s Prayer”: A Yogic Interpretation

    Image:  Gary Clark  – Daily Record

    Gary Clark’s “Mary’s Prayer”: A Yogic Interpretation

    Employing the Christian iconic mother figure, the song “Mary’s Prayer” offers a marvelous corroboration of concepts between Christianity, taught by Jesus the Christ and Yoga, taught by Bhagavan Krishna.

    Introduction and Excerpt from “Mary’s Prayer”

    The song “Mary’s Prayer” is from the album Meet Danny Wilson by the 1980s Scottish rock band Danny Wilson. Lead singer of the group and the writer of the song is Gary Clark.  About the song, Gary Clark, the songwriter, has explained, 

    There is a lot of religious imagery in the song but that is really just a device to relate past, present, and future. It is basically just a simple love song. In fact I like to think of it as being like a country and western song.

    A Yogic Interpretation

    By quipping that his song “is basically just a simple love song,” Gary Clark is being overly modest; on the other hand, he could possibly have meant the tune to be a “simple love song,” but its use of imagery opens the possibility of a deeper interpretation than one traditionally  associated with a “simple love song.”  Thus, I offer my interpretation of Clark’s song, based on my primary method of poetry interpretation, which I label “Yogic Interpretation.”

    This yogic interpretation of Gary Clark’s “Mary’s Prayer” reveals the spiritual nature of the song.  The allusion to the Christian icon “Mary” alerts the reader to the significance of the song as it transcends the stature of a love song to a human lover, although it can certainly be interpreted to include that possibility.  The chorus of the tune offers a lengthening chant, which uplifts the mind directing it toward the Divine Goal of spiritual union.

    The narrator/singer of the song “Mary’s Prayer” is revealing his desire to return to his path to Soul-Awareness, which he has lost by a mistaken act that turned his attention to the worldly thoughts and activities that replaced his earlier attention to his spiritual realm.

    The noun phrase, “Mary’s Prayer,” functions as a metaphor for Soul-Awareness, (God-Union, Self-Realization, Salvation are other terms for this consciousness).  That metaphor is extended by the allusions, “heavenly,” “save me,” “blessed,” “Hail Marys,” and “light in my eyes.”  All of these allusions possess religious connotations often associated with Christianity.  

    The great spiritual leader, Paramahansa Yogananda, has elucidated the comparisons between original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ and original Yoga as taught by Bhagavan Krishna.

    Danny Wilson – “Mary’s Prayer” 

    Mary’s Prayer

    Verse 1

    Everything is wonderful
    Being here is heavenly
    Every single day she says
    Everything is free 

    Verse 2

    I used to be so careless
    As if I couldn’t care less
    Did I have to make mistakes
    When I was Mary’s prayer? 

    Verse 3

    Suddenly the heavens roared
    Suddenly the rain came down
    Suddenly was washed away
    The Mary that I knew 

    Verse 4

    So when you find somebody to keep
    Think of me and celebrate
    I made such a big mistake
    When I was Mary’s Prayer

    Chorus

    So if I say save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me 

    Verse 5

    Blessed is the one who shares
    Your power and your beauty, Mary
    Blessed is the millionaire
    Who shares your wedding day 

    Verse 6

    So when you find somebody to keep
    Think of me and celebrate
    I made such a big mistake
    When I was Mary’s Prayer

    Chorus

    So if I say save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me

    Save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me

    Verse 7

    If you want the fruit to fall
    You have to give the tree a shake
    But if you shake the tree too hard,
    The bough is gonna break 

    Verse 8

    And if I can’t reach the top of the tree
    Mary you can blow me up there
    What I wouldn’t give to be
    When I was Mary’s prayer

    Chorus

    So if I say save me, me save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me 

    Save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me

    Save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes

    What I wouldn’t give to be
    When I was Mary’s prayer

    What I wouldn’t give to be
    When I was Mary’s prayer

    What I wouldn’t—save me—give to be
    When I was Mary’s prayer

    Commentary on “Mary’s Prayer”

    A yogic interpretation of Gary Clark’s “Mary’s Prayer” reveals the song’s spiritual nature.   The allusion to the Christian icon “Mary” alerts the reader to the spiritual significance of the song causing it to transcend the stature of a love song to a human lover.

    First Verse:   Declaring a Spiritual Truth

    Everything is wonderful
    Being here is heavenly
    Every single day, she says
    Everything is free 

    The narrator/singer begins by declaring a spiritual truth, “Everything is wonderful,” and that being alive to experience this wonderfulness is “heavenly.”  The following lines report that each day provides a blank slate of freedom upon which each child of the Belovèd Creator may write his/her own life experiences. 

    “She” refers to Mary, who has authority to make such judgments, as the narrator states. The historical and biblical Mary, as the mother of one of the Blessèd Creator’s most important avatars, Jesus the Christ, holds special power to know the will of the Divine Creator and dispense wisdom to all children of that Creator.

    Therefore, the prayer of Mary is dedicated to each child of the Heavenly Creator, and her only prayer can be for the highest good of  the soul, and the highest good is that each offspring of the Belovèd Lord ultimately know him/herself as such.

    Thus, Mary sends the faithful “every single day” and “everything is free.” Every creature, every human being, every creation of the Divine Creator’s is given for the nurturance, guidance, and progress of each soul made in the Creator’s image.

    Second Verse:  The Care and Feeding of the Soul

    I used to be so careless
    As if I couldn’t care less
    Did I have to make mistakes?
    When I was Mary’s prayer 

    In the second verse, the narrator, having established his knowledge of the stature and desire of Mary, contrasts his own status. He was not been dedicated to his own salvation; he hardly paid any attention to the care and feeding of his soul. It’s as if he could not have “cared less” about the most important aspect of his being. 

    But that is the past, and the narrator now realizes that he made mistakes that have led him in the wrong direction, and he now wonders if he really had to make such a mess of his life.  After all, he was “Mary’s prayer” — the Blessèd Mother had offered him the blessing of soul-union, but through his mistakes he had spurned that offering.

    Third Verse:  Losing Sight of the Blessèd Mother

    Suddenly the heavens roared
    Suddenly the rain came down
    Suddenly was washed away
    The Mary that I knew
    So when you find somebody who gives
    Think of me and celebrate
    I made such a big mistake
    When I was Mary’s Prayer

    The narrator then reveals that through some great and fearful event that caused the heavens to move and rain to pour down, his life had become devoid of the love and caring that had been bestowed on him by Mary.  He no longer knew how to pray or how to feel the grace and guidance of the Blessèd Mother.

    Fourth Verse:  Missing a Great Opportunity

    So when you find somebody to keep
    Think of me and celebrate
    I made such a big mistake
    When I was Mary’s Prayer

    The singing narrator then offers his testimony that having a soul guide, who gives as the blessèd Mary gives, must be kept and celebrated and not merely cast off as the narrator had done. He confesses again that he “made such a big mistake” at a time that he could have just grasped the heavenly protection, while he was “Mary’s prayer.”

    Chorus:  Introduction of the Chant in Four Lines

    So if I say save me save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me 

    Turning to prayer can be difficult for the one who has deliberately left it behind and perhaps forgotten its efficacy. But the narrator is once again taking up his prayers. He is now calling out to the Blessèd One, even though he frames his supplication in “if” clauses: he cries, “So if I say save me, save me / Be the light in my eyes.” He demands from the Divine Mother that she return to him as the light of his eyes, which had left him.

    Furthermore, and again framing his supplication in an “if” clause, he cries, “And if I say ten Hail Marys,” but yet again demands that she “Leave a light on in heaven for me.” The “if” clause followed by a demand seems contradictory, but the narrator is in distress and is confounded by his failures and his former indifference. The chorus of this song functions as a chant as it grows from four lines to its final iteration of sixteen lines that complete the song. 

    Fifth Verse:  Rich in Spirit

    Blessed is the one who shares
    The power and your beauty, Mary
    Blessed is the millionaire
    Who shares your wedding day

    Still in supplication to the Divine Blessèd Mother, the narrator now simply voices what he knows to be the influence of the Divine One: anyone who accepts and transforms his life according to “the power and the beauty” of Mary will find him “a millionaire.” Not necessarily financially rich—but much more important, rich in spirit. The great wedding of the little soul to the Oversoul will be the richest blessing of all.

    Sixth Verse:  Emphasizing the Need to Celebrate and Remember

    So when you find somebody to give
    Think of me and celebrate
    I made such a big mistake
    When I was Mary’s Prayer

    The sixth verse is a repetition of the fourth. It functions to reiterate the importance of the narrator’s awareness of the need to celebrate those giving beings as well as the vital necessity that he realizes what a “big mistake” he made “when [he] was Mary’s Prayer.”

    Chorus:  Continuing the Chant with Repetition

    So if I say save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me

    Save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for men

    The chorus again becoming an enlarging presence serves to direct the mind Heaven-ward, while reminding the singer of his purpose for singing, for addressing his Divine Belovèd and keeping the mind steady.

    Seventh Verse:  Gathering the Effects of Yoga

    If you want the fruit to fall
    You have to give the tree a shake
    But if you shake the tree too hard,
    The bough is gonna break

    The penultimate verse offers a metaphor of gathering fruit from a tree which likens such gathering to the yoga practice that leads to Self-Realization or God-union.  Shaking the tree gently will result in fruit falling, but shaking “the tree too hard” will break the bough. Yoga techniques must be practiced gently; straining in yoga practice is like shaking the tree too hard, which will result in failure to attain the yogic goals.

    Eighth Verse:   Upward Movement Through Faith

    And if I can’t reach the top of the tree
    Mary you can blow me up there
    What I wouldn’t give to be
    When I was Mary’s prayer

    The final verse also employs a tree metaphor. The narrator, who is once again firmly on his spiritual path, expresses an extremely important truth that each devotee must cultivate: faith that the target of his goal can lift the devotee at any time. 

    The narrator colorfully expresses this truth by stating, “And if I can’t reach the top of the tree / Mary you can blow me up there.”  And finally, he expresses his regret for allowing Mary to escape him: he wants to become “Mary’s prayer” once again, and he would give anything to do so.

    Chorus:  The Efficacy of the Chant

    So if I say save me, me save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me 

    Save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    And if I say ten Hail Marys
    Leave a light on heaven for me

    Save me, save me
    Be the light in my eyes
    What I wouldn’t give to be
    When I was Mary’s prayer

    What I wouldn’t give to be
    When I was Mary’s prayer
    What I wouldn’t—save me—give to be
    When I was Mary’s prayer

    The chorus doubled from its first iteration of four lines featured after the fourth verse to eight lines following verse six.  Then it doubles again following the final verse, finishing with sixteen lines.  

    The marvelous effect of the chant places the song squarely within the yogic practice of employing repetition to steady and direct the mind to its goal of union with the Divine. The song finishes with the much enlarged chorus, which is not only musically pleasing, but also shares the efficacy of a chant that draws the mind closer to its spiritual, yogic  goal.

  • Sara Teasdale’s “I Am Not Yours”

    Image: Sara Teasdale

    Sara Teasdale’s “I Am Not Yours”

    In the hands of a less skilled artist, the love theme of this lyric often trots out a tired cliché, but Sara Teasdale’s speaker makes it fresh and new.

    Introduction and Text of “I Am Not Yours”

    Taking the theme of deep and lasting love, the speaker in Sara Teasdale’s “I Am Not Yours” employs the poetic device of hyperbole to convey her emotion.  Three riming quatrains using the traditional scheme of ABCB unfold the poem’s drama.

    I Am Not Yours

    I am not yours, not lost in you,
    Not lost, although I long to be
    Lost as a candle lit at noon,
    Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

    You love me, and I find you still
    A spirit beautiful and bright,
    Yet I am I, who long to be
    Lost as a light is lost in light.

    Oh plunge me deep in love—put out
    My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
    Swept by the tempest of your love,
    A taper in a rushing wind.

    Commentary on “I Am Not Yours”

    While lovers are prone to exaggerate in artistic endeavors the level to which they have become part of their love one, this speaker on Sara Teasdale’s “I Am Not Yours” dramatizes a very different approach: a series of negative exaggerations that emphasize the positive.

    First Quatrain:  No Romantic Exaggeration

    I am not yours, not lost in you,
    Not lost, although I long to be
    Lost as a candle lit at noon,
    Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

    The speaker directs her words to her beloved in an extraordinary manner, by claiming that she is not possessed by him and that she has not lost herself in his charms.  While lovers are prone to exaggerate in artistic endeavors the level to which they have become part of their love one, this speaker dramatizes a very different approach.

    Thus this speaker then changes her direction as she proclaims that even though she is “not lost in [him],” she desires wholeheartedly that she might become so. She, therefore, states that she would like to be as is “a candle lit at noon.”  A candle at noon would barely show light at all as it would meld with the natural sunlight.

    The speaker then asserts that she would like to become part of her beloved as “a snowflake in the sea.” The oceanic presence of her beloved has engulfed her heart in such as way that she can liken herself to the smallness and malleability of a flake of snow melting in the ocean.

    The original claim that she does not belong to the addressee has now been set on its head.  Although literally it will always be true that she is not his and she is not lost in him, her desire for that blending has caused her imagination to conjure such a state in a majestic manner of metaphorical supremacy.

    Second Quatrain: Total Melding of Body, Mind, Soul

    You love me, and I find you still
    A spirit beautiful and bright,
    Yet I am I, who long to be
    Lost as a light is lost in light.

    The second quatrain confirms that the speaker is, indeed, loved by the target of her desire.  As she claims, “I am I,” she hungers for annihilation of self, that is, to melt into her lover. Her drama continues the seeking after total blending of body, mind, and spirit with the beloved.

    The speaker continues to wish for that complete melding with her lover, as she has shown from the beginning of her drama.  She wants to be totally consumed in the love she feels for him:  to be “lost [in him] as light is lost in light.”

    Third Quatrain:  Annihilation of Separation

    Oh plunge me deep in love—put out
    My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
    Swept by the tempest of your love,
    A taper in a rushing wind.

    The final quatrain finds the speaker essentially begging for the awareness of her wish to experience complete emersion in her beloved. She pleads, “Oh plunge me deep in love.”  The speaker desires to exist so close to her beloved that she has no need to hear or see. 

    His love and affection will be her only awareness and guide.  She begs that all her sense awareness become “swept by the tempest of your love.”  Again, the speaker returns to the candle metaphor.  She wishes to be so completely subsumed in him that she becomes a “taper in a rushing wind.” No longer is there a separation between the two lovers.

    Avoiding the Tired, the Obnoxious, the Clichéd

    The theme of this love lyric is a common one for lovers; pop lyrics use it over-abundantly. The idea of becoming so consumed by love that one wishes to melt into one’s lover has long been a cliché; the serious artist who employs this theme works to dramatize it in fresh, original ways.

    That freshness is achieved by Teasdale in her opening remarks, “I am not yours, not lost in you” and in her use of light as the substance to which she compares her desired union with her beloved.

    She avoids all of the tired and obnoxious sexual connotations that usually appear in portrayals of this theme. This lyric’s elocution remains so elevated that it could be interpreted as a devotee’s prayer to the Divine.

  • Renée Nicole Macklin’s “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs”

    Image: Created by Grok

    Renée Nicole Macklin’s “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs”

    The eight movements in this piece of postmodern doggerel serve to indict the scribbling as nothing more than a postmodern workshop exercise.  It remains one of the most flagrant tells that something is wrong in education culture in the USA: this poem won the 2020 Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize at Old Dominion University.

    Introduction and Text of “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs”

    This piece “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” does not merely fail on its own terms; it exemplifies a system that has mistaken posture for poetry and grievance for vision. The entire spectrum along with its habits have become unmistakable—and depressingly standardized.

    On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs

    i want back my rocking chairs,

    solipsist sunsets,
    & coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy
    legs of cockroaches.

    i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores
    (mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—
    the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of
    zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):

    remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they
    burned the hairs inside my nostrils,
    & salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.
    under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeat
                   ribosome
                   endoplasmic—
                   lactic acid
                   stamen

    at the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills—

    i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can’t point to
    anymore, maybe my gut—
    maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.

    it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge that used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead.
    can i let them both be? this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroom

                   now i can’t believe—
                   that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my
    ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths “make room for wonder”—
    all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:
    life is merely
    to ovum and sperm
    and where those two meet
    and how often and how well
    and what dies there.

    Commentary on “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs”

    Line breaks are not thoughts; failure to capitalize signals nothing profound.  This piece strains to be original to the point of exhaustion.  Its sprawling placement on the page does not equate to anything Whitmanesque; its mindless juxtapositions do little more than startle and stun and then fall flat.

    First Movement: Nostalgia as Substitute for Form

    i want back my rocking chairs,

    solipsist sunsets,
    & coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.

    The piece opens with a whine rather than an image: “i want back my rocking chairs.” This awkwardly phrased salvo is not memory shaped by art; it is desire announced without effort. The rocking chair is a prefabricated symbol, wheeled in to signal premodern calm without earning it.

    The gesture toward “tercets” and “pentameter” is particularly revealing. These features are not forms the poem employs but instead are terms it waves at the reader like credentials: “look I know some poetry terms I learned in my creative writing class.” 

    Meter becomes metaphor, form becomes flavoring. As Helen Vendler insists, poetry requires a thinking ear, not a decorative vocabulary [1]. This poem treats form the way lifestyle branding treats craft: as an aesthetic aura, not a discipline.

    Second Movement: Desecration as Cultural Credential

    i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores
    (mashed them in plastic trash bags… the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):

    Here we arrive at the first ritual sacrifice. Sacred texts are not confronted, questioned, or even read; they are disposed of theatrically. The Bible appears only as an evangelical pamphlet, never as literature, theology, or intellectual inheritance.

    Such effusion is not critique; it is credentialing. George Steiner warned that modern art’s fixation on desecration often signals creative exhaustion rather than courage [2]. The poem performs disbelief the way a résumé lists internships. As Harold Bloom observed, contemporary poetry often avoids agon—the struggle with strong precursors—in favor of symbolic vandalism [3]. Trash bags replace thought.

    Third Movement: Science as Vocabulary Trauma

    remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they
    burned the hairs inside my nostrils,
    & salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.
    under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeat
                   ribosome
                   endoplasmic—
                   lactic acid
                   stamen

    Science enters the poem not as inquiry but as irritation. Scientific terms are recited like curse words, their meanings irrelevant. The poem resents knowledge without attempting to understand it.

    James Longenbach has noted that free verse collapses when it merely records annoyance rather than transforming it [4]. Here, scientific language is treated as an assault on sensitivity, revealing not science’s limitations but the speaker’s refusal to engage it beyond syllabic discomfort.

    Fourth Movement: Specificity as Alibi

    at the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills—

    This line is the system’s shibboleth. The named diner is not symbol, setting, or pressure point—it is proof of authenticity. The poem assumes that coordinates equal meaning.  Randall Jarrell warned that poetry which merely reports experience degenerates into prose with line breaks [5]. This IHOP does nothing but exist, which the poem treats as sufficient.

    Fifth Movement: The Soul, Shrunk for Convenience

    maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.

    Here the poem congratulates itself for modesty by reducing the soul to runoff. Unlike metaphysical poetry, which used bodily imagery to heighten spiritual stakes, this poem uses anatomy to flatten them.

    Christopher Ricks argued that metaphor should increase imaginative pressure [6]. This one relieves it. The soul becomes small enough not to trouble anyone—including the poet.

    Sixth Movement: The Straw-Man Dialectic

    this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroom

    Faith and science are staged as cartoon antagonists: faith as comfort blanket, science as rude undergraduate. This weasel language is not dialectic; it is melodrama for the intellectually uncurious.

    As T. S. Eliot warned, poetry that mistakes emotional dissatisfaction for insight substitutes complaint for thought [7]. The poem invents a conflict it cannot articulate and then sulks about it.

    Seventh Movement: Wonder Infantilized

    the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to…

    Wonder here is not earned but remembered—and remembered only as childhood comfort. Sacred texts become maternal figures, soothing rather than demanding.

    Eliot cautioned against confusing regression with depth. This passage does exactly that. The poem inadvertently admits that its concept of wonder cannot survive adulthood and then blames knowledge for the failure.

    Eighth Movement: The Grand Reduction (a.k.a. The Sulk)

    life is merely
    to ovum and sperm
    and where those two meet
    and how often and how well
    and what dies there.

    The poem concludes with the system’s obligatory finale: a reduction so crude it pretends to be brave. Life is reduced to sex and death, as though no one has ever thought this before.

    No serious scientist, philosopher, or poet holds such a view, and the poem does not pretend to argue it. As Eliot observed, exhaustion presented as revelation is still exhaustion. The poem ends not with insight, but with a pout.

    An Afterword: Dissatisfaction Does Not Bring Wisdom

    Macklin’s “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” exemplifies the current rot that passes for poetry because it wants the authority of crisis without the labor of understanding. It rejects form while gesturing at it, dismisses belief without engaging it, and resents knowledge without learning it. 

    It longs for rocking chairs but refuses carpentry. What it offers instead is the familiar debris of postmodern workshop verse: fragments of feeling, gestures of rebellion, and the unexamined belief that dissatisfaction is a form of wisdom.  It is not.

    Readers might notice that this essay does not even begin to address the awkwardness of language use this piece, which would require another essay to fully engage the issue. Suffice it to say that said awkwardness could, in fact, result either from intent or simply lack of language acumen of the doggerelist.

    Either reason aligns with postmodern thought that dismisses utility for heft and originality for quaint novelty. For the postmod mindset, Ezra Pound’s diktat “make it new” [8] has become “make it shockingly ugly.”

    Sources

    [1] Helen Vendler. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Harvard UP, 1997.

    [2] George Steiner. Real Presences. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

    [3] Harold Bloom. The Anxiety of Influence. Oxford UP, 1973.

    [4] James Longenbach. The Resistance to Poetry. University of Chicago Press, 2004.

    [5] Randall Jarrell. Poetry and the Age. University Press of Florida, 2001.

    [6] Christopher Ricks. The Force of Poetry. Oxford UP, 1984.

    [7] T. S. Eliot. The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism. Harvard UP, 1933.

    [8] Ezra Pound. Make It New: Essays.  Faber and Faber. 1934.

  • Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror”

    Image:  Sylvia Plath

    Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror”

    The speaker in Sylvia Plath’s masterpiece “Mirror” employs a double metaphor of personifying a mirror and then a lake to report the experience of observing a woman obsessed with the disfiguring of her aging face.

    Introduction with Text of “Mirror”

    One of the best American poems of the 20th century, Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror” plays out in only two unrimed, nine-line verse paragraphs (veragraphs). The theme of the poem focuses on the reality of the aging process. The personified mirror dramatizes its amazing skill in reflecting whatever is placed before it exactly as the object is.  

    A lake serving as a mirror performs the same function of truth-telling.  It is the mirror as lake, however, who is assigned the privilege of reporting the flailing agitation and tears of the woman who watches and senses that her aging face resembles “a terrible fish” that is rising toward her. 

    The death of Sylvia Plath at the tender age of thirty renders unto this awesome poem an uncanny quality. Because Plath left this earth at such an early age, the poet put an end to the actuality that she could have undergone the aging process as the woman in the poem is doing.  

    Plath is grouped with the 20th century “Confessional Poets,” but she often wrote poems that cannot be labeled confessional in that they do not reflect her life experience.  Rather than confessing in “Mirror,” the young poet is merely speculating through a speaker, as most poets of any stripe usually do.

    Mirror

    I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
    Whatever I see I swallow immediately
    Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
    I am not cruel, only truthful‚
    The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
    Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
    It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
    I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
    Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

    Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
    Searching my reaches for what she really is.
    Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
    I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
    She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
    I am important to her. She comes and goes.
    Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
    In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
    Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

    Reading of “Mirror”  

    Commentary on “Mirror”

    The poem “Mirror” is arguably Sylvia Plath’s best poetic effort, and it is arguably also one of the best poems in American poetry.

    First Versagraph:  The Mirror Speaks

    I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
    Whatever I see I swallow immediately
    Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
    I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
    The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
    Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
    It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
    I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
    Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

    The personified mirror opens the poem with a clear and accurate boast that he holds no prior prejudice against or for whatever appears before him. The mirror continues to proclaim his uncanny truthful ability for over half the versagraph.  He reports that he takes in whatever is placed before him with no compunction to change the subject in any way. 

    The mirror cannot be moved by emotion as human beings are so motivated. The mirror simply reflects back the cold hard facts, unfazed by human desires and whims. The mirror does, however, seem almost to possess the human quality of pride in its ability to remain objective. 

    As the mirror continues his objective reporting, he claims that he is “not cruel, only truthful.” Again, he is making his case for complete objectivity, making sure his listeners understand that he always portrays each object before him as the object actually is. 

    However, again he might go a little too far, perhaps spilling his pride of objectivity into the human arena, real as he proclaims himself to be as the eye of “a little god, four-cornered.” By overstating his qualities, and by taking himself so seriously as to deify himself, he begins to lose his credibility.

    Bu then as the listener/reader may be starting to waver from too much truth telling, the mirror jolts the narrative to what he actually does: he habitually renders the color of the opposite wall that has speckles on it.  And he avers that he has concentrated so long on that wall that he feels that the wall might be part of his own heart. 

    The listener/reader can then understand that a mirror with a heart might actually tend to exaggerate and even take on some tinge of human emotion, even though it is likely that a mirror’s heart would toil quite differently from the heart of a human being. 

    The mirror confesses that as the objects confront him, as these “faces” and “darkness” come and go, they effect a flicker that would no doubt agitate the mirror’s sensibilities, regardless of how objective and truthful the mirror remains in human terms.

    Second Versagraph:  The Lake Metaphor

    Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
    Searching my reaches for what she really is.
    Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
    I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
    She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
    I am important to her. She comes and goes.
    Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
    In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
    Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

    Reading a poem can deliver the reader into a state of “narrosis”—a state once rendered by Samuel Taylor Coleridge as a “willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”  A reader must allow him/herself to believe, if only temporarily, what the narrative is saying. 

    It is with this “poetic faith” that a listener/reader must accept the claim that the “mirror” has now become a “lake.”  The dramatic effect is all important here in order to have the woman bending over the water to continue that search for herself. 

    The woman hopes to find “what she really is,” according to the mirror/lake.  While the mirror might believe that the woman is searching for her real self, readers will grasp immediately that her obsession centers on her desire to hold on to her youth.

    The mirror/lake then ridicules the woman for wanting to believe, “those liars,” that is, “the candles or the moon,” whose lighting can be deceptive, filling in those facial wrinkles, allowing her to believe that she does not look as old as she really does in the full light of day. 

    The mirror/lake has come to understand how important he is to the woman, despite her agitated reaction as she looks into that aging face.  While he might expect gratitude for his faithful reporting, the mirror/lake does not seem to receive any thanks from the woman.   

    Yet despite not being thanked for his service, the mirror/lake takes satisfaction in knowing how important he has become to the woman.  After all, she looks into the mirror/lake every day, no doubt, many times a day.  Such attention cannot be interpreted any other way by the mirror:  he is convinced of his vital rôle in the woman’s daily life.

    As the woman depends on the mirror to report her aging development, the mirror/lake has come to depend on the woman’s presence before him.  He knows that “her face” will continue to “replace[] the darkness” every morning.   

    The mirror/lake knows that whatever the woman takes away from his reflection every morning has become such an internal part of her life that he can count on her being there.  He will never be alone but will continue to report his findings, objectively and truthfully.  The mirror/lake’s final statement is one of the most profound statements to ultimatize a poem:  

    In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
    Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

    Plath’s genius in fashioning a mirror that morphs into a lake allowed her to create these marvelous two final lines of her magnificent poem.  If Sylvia Plath had produced nothing more than this poem, she would likely have become the great voice she is as a major twentieth-century poet. 

    No one can deny that a mirror becoming a lake is a stretch of the imagination that a in the hands of a less skillful wordsmith could have remained banal and even silly.  But in the hands of a master poet that final two-line sentence grasps the mind of its readers/listeners.  The genius of those lines delivers the poem into the natural world without one extraneous thought or word, rocking the world of literary studies.

    Image: One of Sylvia Plath’s Many Self-Portraits 

  • Sara Teasdale’s “Barter” 

    Image: Sara Teasdale Britannica

    Sara Teasdale’s “Barter” 

    Sara Teasdale’s “Barter” is a lyrical musing on the importance and value of beauty, stressing the indispensability of giving oneself up completely to any moment of loveliness that happens to appear before one’s consciousness.

    Introduction and Text of “Barter”

    Sara Teasdale’s “Barter” was first published in 1917 in her collection titled simply Love Songs. It is likely the poet’s most anthologized poem, for it remains one of  her most crystallized expressions on loveliness, self-surrender, and sublimity. 

    In “Barter,” the poet has created a speaker who professes the belief that beauty is all encompassing in all of its aspects including its presence in nature, or in love between individuals, or in the soul’s quiet musings.  To purchase such a rare commodity, one must be willing to pay any price.

    Barter

    Life has loveliness to sell,
         All beautiful and splendid things,
    Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
         Soaring fire that sways and sings,
    And children’s faces looking up
    Holding wonder like a cup.

    Life has loveliness to sell,
         Music like a curve of gold,
    Scent of pine trees in the rain,
         Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
    And for your spirit’s still delight,
    Holy thoughts that star the night.

    Spend all you have for loveliness,
         Buy it and never count the cost;
    For one white singing hour of peace
         Count many a year of strife well lost,
    And for a breath of ecstasy
    Give all you have been, or could be.

    Commentary on “Barter”

    The title “Barter”offers the first hint that the controlling metaphor of the poem will be that of commerce in the marketplace. The speaker then moves from description of worldly things of beauty to exhortation in demanding the audience’s complete surrender in order to acquire that beauty.

    First Stanza:  What Life Possesses

    Life has loveliness to sell,
      All beautiful and splendid things,
    Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
      Soaring fire that sways and sings,
    And children’s faces looking up
    Holding wonder like a cup.

    In the opening line, the speaker establishes the controlling metaphor for the poem: life is similar to a marketplace where its products are myriad forms of beauty.  The speaker thus is personifying “Life” as a vendor, who is selling “loveliness.” 

    The speaker then begins a catalogue of examples of the things that are lovely, that is, they are “[a]ll beautiful and splendid things” such as ocean waves that whiten as they beat up against “a cliff,” fire that soars, sways, and sings, and the faces of little children as they look up in wonderment.  The structure of the stanza features a quatrain with the rime scheme ABCB, and the final two lines are a rimed couplet.  This structure is repeated in the remaining two stanzas.

    Second Stanza:  Things of Beauty

    Life has loveliness to sell,
      Music like a curve of gold,
    Scent of pine trees in the rain,
      Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
    And for your spirit’s still delight,
    Holy thoughts that star the night.

    Opening the second stanza, the speaker repeats the line “Life has loveliness to sell,” creating a chant-like rhythm and continuing the commerce metaphor.   Then again following the same structure, the speaker offers another catalogue of the items for sale that are beautiful.

    The four senses of hearing, smell, sight, and touch are represented.  For hearing, there is music with its “curve of gold,” suggesting both melody and shape, along with value and warmth; this auditory image melds aesthetic and moral value: music soothes and inspires while gold glitters and is long lasting.

    Representing the olfactory image, the “[s]cent of pine trees in the rain” brings to mind a pungent oder, wherein rain further enhances the scent by drawing out the resinous sharpness of the trees.

    The sense of sight finds its ocular image in the “[e]yes that love you,” and the tactile image in the  “arms that hold.” The human element brings to the poem an aura of intimacy and love, as these two images engage the emotion involved in the human acts of affection and protection.  

    The final couplet moves from the physical to the spiritual level of existence. The spirit (soul) also is afforded the quality of beauty in this marketplace.  “Holy thoughts” offer pleasure to the soul as the stars offer loveliness to the night time sky.

    Third Stanza:  The Vital Importance of Experiencing Beauty

    Spend all you have for loveliness,
      Buy it and never count the cost;
    For one white singing hour of peace
      Count many a year of strife well lost,
    And for a breath of ecstasy
    Give all you have been, or could be.

    In the final stanza, the speaker moves from announcement and description to a direct command.  Replacing the incantatory “Life has loveliness to sell” is the command to spend all that you possess in order to purchase this commodity called “loveliness.” Further commanding, the speaker insists that her listeners continue to purchase and give no thought as to how much is the price.

    Conjoining color, sound, and time, the speaker commands her listeners to find it prudent to have lost “many a year of strife” for acquiring the amazing experience of “one white singing hour of peace.” 

    In the final couplet, the speaker presses forth her most intense commanding statement:  for even a moment of the highest bliss, give up yourself entirely, including all you have been and all you could ever be. For this speaker the importance of experiencing even a brief moment of joyful beauty is worth all one can sacrifice.  

    Such a suggestion implies that the speaker believes that most beauty is lost through the human acts of non-observation and non-involvement with the things of this world that are indeed lovely if one looks with seeing eyes and an open loving heart.

    Full Image: Sara Teasdale Britannica

  • Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy”

    Image:  Paul Laurence Dunbar

    Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy”

    The speaker of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” metaphorically elucidates, through the employment of a “caged bird,” the stifling condition of a human soul locked in a human body.

    Introduction with Text of “Sympathy”

    Although at the literal level, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy” commits the pathetic fallacy [1], it makes a useful and accurate statement about the confinement of the human soul as it becomes aware of its stifling condition of being “caged” in a physical body.

    In the fields of hard science, thinkers and researchers, who once insisted that the soul was only a religious construct or “an object of human belief” [2] are finally catching up with spiritual sages and avatars.

    Spiritual adepts from time immemorial in religious scripture from the major world religions, including Hinduism [3]  Christianity [4] and Islam [5], have explained that the soul, as a essential being of energy, is potentially capable of instantaneous flight to any location of its choice.  The soul grapples with the slow, earth-bound limitations put on it by living in a human body under cosmic delusion.

    Sympathy

    I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
    When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
    When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
    And the river flows like a stream of glass;
    When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
    And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—

    I know what the caged bird feels!
    I know why the caged bird beats his wing
    Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
    For he must fly back to his perch and cling
    When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
    And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
    And they pulse again with a keener sting—

    I know why he beats his wing!
    I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
    When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
    When he beats his bars and he would be free;
    It is not a carol of joy or glee,
    But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
    But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
    I know why the caged bird sings!

    Maya Angelou recites 

    Commentary on “Sympathy”

    The speaker of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” employs the metaphor of the “caged bird” to elucidate the machinations of the soul contending with a physical encasement.

    First Septet:  Unfortunate Knowledge

    I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
    When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
    When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
    And the river flows like a stream of glass;
    When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
    And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—

    The speaker begins by employing the pathetic fallacy, asserting that he understands the feelings of a bird in a cage.  He appends the interjection “Alas!”—indicating that that sensory knowledge is unfortunate.

    Scientifically, the fact remains that the assertion of knowing how the caged bird feels cannot be accurate. Science cannot ascertain that avians and humans “feel” in a comparable manner.  Nevertheless, poetic understanding can circumvent scientific facts, as they describe metaphorically ineffable knowledge.

    Dunbar’s employment of the pathetic fallacy ascends to a level from which it has the ability to elucidate the claimed truth.  Such an inference can be accepted as an appropriate comparison between a human soul incarnated in a human body and a “caged bird.”

    The speaker creates a catalogue of all the beauties of nature that a bird while caged cannot enjoy:  the bright sunshine, sloping hillsides, breezes through the new spring grass, streaming rivers running smooth and clear, the chirping songs of other avians, blossoms opening from buds emitting their “faint perfume.”

    Obviously, the bird in a cage must stay in a limited space; a creature bestowed by its Creator with the enviable capability of flying through the air becomes confined, limiting its movements drastically.

    The human heart and mind find it difficult to succumb to such limitations; thus, it seems nearly impossible to comprehend how the idea of placing bird in cage ever originated.  

    Still, birds in captivity do live longer [6]:  they are afforded a constant and safe food supply and remain protected from predators.  Nevertheless, the essence of human romanticism still craves and clings to the idea of a free ranging life for all living things.  

    To the very heart-core of humanity, it remains that living beings ought never become captives to other living beings.  And as that captivity is observed, only the dreadful aspect of such captivity pings in the consciousness humanity.

    Second Septet:  Bleeding for Freedom

    I know what the caged bird feels!
    I know why the caged bird beats his wing
    Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
    For he must fly back to his perch and cling
    When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
    And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
    And they pulse again with a keener sting—

    In the second stanza, the speaker moves on to the direct negative affects of having a bird caged up, as he laments the activities of the poor avian.  This captive creature will “beat his wings” on the bars of the cage until they begin to bleed.

    After beating his wings to a bloody mess, the poor injured creature can move only onto his perch in the cage; he cannot seek solace in the open branches of nature to where the bird would rather flee.  

    The bird again suffers the wounds of incarceration in addition to the wounds of damaged, bloody wings.  The pain becomes ever more pronounced each time the bird tries to escape his confinement.  

    His memory of freedom may motivate him to continue to free himself, but his inability to access that freedom continues to force him to continue his attempts.  By nature, he must continue his bloody struggles against confinement.

    Third Septet:  Singing for Freedom

    I know why he beats his wing!
    I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
    When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
    When he beats his bars and he would be free;
    It is not a carol of joy or glee,
    But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
    But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
    I know why the caged bird sings!

    The speaker now reiterates what has grown into a refrain; the human speaker knows why this caged bird continually beats his wings and bruises his breast on the hard bars of confinement.  The speaker also understands why the avian sings.  

    The poor singing creature does not sing prompted by “joy or glee.”  His song is not a carol but is instead a prayer of supplication to the Creator for deliverance from his captivity. The bird’s song is, in fact, a plea that the avian is flinging “upward to Heaven.”  Yet, the speaker only implies the reason for that plea.  

    It should become perfectly obvious the reason that this bird is singing.  He hopes that his plea, which is a prayer, will urge the heart of his sympathetic Creator to bring the creature release from his painful incarceration.

    The speaker finalizes his claim, “I know why the caged bird sings!”  With this repeated sentiment, the speaker wishes to make clear his understanding that the poor bird’s frustration is his own.  The speaker thus is offering “Sympathy” to this poor, caged avian.

    The Historical Aberration of Slavery and the Body-Caged Soul

    Human history [7] is replete with despicable institutions of slavery—a people taking another people captive to procure their labor and resources in order to profit the enslavers.

    The Romans [8] enslaved vast portions of the globe under the Roman Empire.  Muslims [9]  enslaved expansive areas of the Middle-East in their empire building era, which included the Ottoman Empire.

    According to Thomas Sowell [10], Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution,

    To me the most staggering thing about the long history of slavery — which encompassed the entire world and every race in it — is that nowhere before the 18th century was there any serious question raised about whether slavery was right or wrong. In the late 18th century, that question arose in Western civilization, but nowhere else. (my emphasis added)

    The list of slave owning societies goes on and on, from Biblical times to the present day in some areas of the world.  However, because of the relatively recent proximity to the enslavement of Africans on plantations in the United States, many history-deficient thinkers associate slavery solely with the American experience [11].

    And the repercussions of that evil institution still vibrate throughout twenty-first century America.

    Because the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar was black, readers may find it difficult to accept that this poem can be elucidating any issue other than black life in  the USA—both before and after the Civil War.  That narrowly interpreted version of the poem, however, limits the poem’s profundity. 

    If a black individual is denied by law or custom the ability to choose and follow his own path in life, his life is then circumscribe in such as way as to liken him to a bird in a cage. That fact cannot be disputed. 

    However, Dunbar’s achievement with his poem “Sympathy”is so much greater than the interpretation of a black life in a cage will allow.  Such a limitation may be even considered racist, as well as reductionist.

    Dunbar’s “Sympathy” expresses a cosmic—not merely cultural—truth. All human souls find representation in that poem—not just the soul of  black individuals. Every human soul that becomes aware of itself encased in a human body feels like that bird in a cage.

    Each human soul suffers the same suffocating confinement that the bird experiences because the bird and the soul are created to be far ranging, throughout the limitless sky of life.

    The human soul has been created by the Divine Creator to be an immortal, eternal entity, with the power and the ability to experience the limitless expanse of Omnipresence. The soul is meant to exist everlastingly without any bindings of flesh or mental trammels that would cage it or hem it round.

    Dunbar’s “Sympathy” features a useful description of the soul lodged in a human body-cage, employing metaphorically the caged bird. The poem’s achievement deserves to be celebrated because of its omnipresent universality and not merely read through a racial, temporal prism of culture.

    The Late Maya Angelou’s First Memoir

    Likely the line, “I know why the caged bird sings,” will be immediately recognized by many readers as the title of the late Maya Angelou’s first memoir.  Maya Angelou gives credit to Abbey Lincoln Roach [12] for titling her book; yet, they both neglect to mention the Dunbar poem, about which one would expect not only a reference but an exact quotation featuring the line. 

    To her credit, Angelou did acknowledge the existence of Dunbar’s poem, and she read an excerpt from it in a PBS interview [13].   Angelou also composed a piece, which she titled, “Caged Bird” [14].  Angelou’s piece sports a sing-song rime and rhythm, pleasing to the ear but lacking the spiritual profundity that Dunbar’s far-superior poem achieves.

    Sources

    [1] Editors. “Pathetic Fallacy.”  LitCharts. Accessed May 16, 2022.

    [2] Robert Lanza, M.D., “Does the Soul Exist? Evidence Says ‘Yes’.”  Psychology Today.  December 21, 2011.

    [3]  Curators. “The Soul.”  Royal Path of Self-Realization.  Accessed September 12, 2023

    [4]  Curators. “50 Bible Verses about The Soul.”  The Bible: Knowing Jesus.  Accessed May 16, 2022.

    [5]  Editors. “Soul in Islamic Philosophy.” Muslim Philosophy.  Accessed September 12, 2023.

    [6]  John C. Mittermeier.  “The Surprisingly Complex Science of Bird Longevity.”  American Bird Converancy.  January 29, 2021.

    [7] Editors.  “Slave Societies.”  Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed September 12, 2023.

    [8]   Mark Cartwright.  “Slavery in the Roman World.”  World History Encyclopedia.  November 1, 2013.

    [9]  Editors.  “Slavery in Islam.” BBC.  September 7, 2009.

    [10]  Thomas Sowell.  “Ending Slavery.”  Jewish World Review. February, 8, 2005.

    [11]  Curators.  “The Real History of Slavery by Thomas Sowell.”  Internet Archive.  Accessed September 12, 2023.

    [12]Editors. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, page 1.” Read From Net.  Accessed September 12, 2023

    [13]  Curators. “Maya Angelou reads from Paul Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy”?.” PBS. Aired March 28, 2017.

    [14]  Maya Angelou.  “Caged Bird.”  Poetry Foundation.  Accessed September 12, 2023.

    Image:  Paul Laurence Dunbar  SCAD Museum of Art

  • D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

    Image:  D. H. Lawrence 

    D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

    In D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” an educator is dramatizing the lackluster performance of the students in the classroom.  The teacher’s strength is being sapped by many vain attempts to teach pupils who refuse to learn.

    Introduction with Text of “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

    D. H. Lawrence’s published collection titled Love Poems includes the poem, “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” in the section labeled “The Schoolmaster.”  Two other sections of the collection are “Love Poems” and “Dialect Poems.” The collection of poems, published in New York by Mitchell Kinerley, appeared in 1915.  

    Rime Scheme

    D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson” contains a handful of rimes scattered throughout the piece.  These rimes seem to occur accidentally, and therefore, do not rise to the status of an actual “rime scheme.”   These seemingly random rimes, however, do play well in suggesting the level ennui of the teacher.

    Alliteration

    In the first stanza of D. H. Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson,” the following lines feature what upon first impression might be considered “alliteration.” The initial consonants are capitalized, bolded, and italicized for easy recognition:

    Line 1:  When Will the bell ring, and end this Weariness?
    Lines 4 and 5: they Hate to Hunt, / I can Haul them
    Lines 6 and 7: to Bearthe Brunt / Of the Books
    Lines 7, 8, and 9:  Score / Of Several insults of blotted pages and Scrawl / Of Slovenly
    Line 11:  Woodstacks Working Weariedly

    Even though those lines feature repetition of initial consonantal sounds, the poetic purpose for the use of alliteration is not fulfilled in any of those consonant groups, and therefore that true poetic alliteration is not actually employed in this poem.

    Poets and other creative writers employ “alliteration” in both poetry and prose to create a musically rhythmic sound. Alliterative sound renders the flow of words a beauty which attracts the auditory nerves making the language both more enjoyable and more easily remembered.  

    None of this poetic purpose is fulfilled in Lawrence’s lines with the assumed alliteration, especially lines 4–5, 6–7,  and 7–8–9, which spill over onto the next line, thus separating the alliterative group.

    The Six-Stanza Draft of This Poem

    An earlier draft of Lawrence’s “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson” featuring six stanzas appears on some internet sites.  The six-stanza version is far inferior to the masterfully revised two-stanza version, which is the focus of this commentary. 

    Readers who encounter that earlier six-stanza draft should compare it to the two-stanza, revised version.  They will then understand that the revised two-stanza version is more polished, succinct, and includes the useful metaphor of likening the soul to embers of a fire.  

    Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson

    When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
    How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
    My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
    Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
    I can haul them and urge them no more.
    No more can I endure to bear the brunt
    Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
    Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
    Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
    I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
    Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.

    And shall I take
    The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
    Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume
    Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll
    Of their insults in punishment? – I will not!
    I will not waste myself to embers for them,
    Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot,
    For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
    Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep
    Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
    It all for them, I should hate them –
    – I will sit and wait for the bell.

    Reading of “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”  

    Commentary on “Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson”

    The bored and labor-weary instructor in “Last Lesson of the Afternoon” is dramatizing the fatigue that has resulted from trying to teach lackluster pupils who resist learning.  He, thus, makes a vow to himself that he will simply stop the punishing of his own soul; he will stop wasting his time and effort, trying to teach those who do not want to learn.

    First Stanza: Student Dogs

    When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
    How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
    My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
    Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
    I can haul them and urge them no more.
    No more can I endure to bear the brunt
    Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
    Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
    Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
    I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
    Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.

    The drama played out in this poem begins and concludes with the teacher asserting that he will simply sit and wait for the bell to ring—in a sense, he is likening his own behavior to his uninspired pupils. 

    The speaker metaphorically compares his lackluster students to dogs that pull hard and attempt to wrench free from a leash.  The students resist his attempt to teach them; thus, the dog metaphor describes their behavior. They have no desire to learn, and the teacher thus has no desire to continue trying to instruct them. 

    He has arrived at the notion that he can no longer in good faith continue this farce of teaching and learning that is not taking place. He wishes to free himself from the same situation that he thinks his students are undergoing.

    Apparently, this teacher does not possess the patience and love of the young required for working with students. He has become too weary, and he holds no empathy for these students who continue to turn in “slovenly work.” 

    He has come to loathe the job of having to correct the many badly written papers that confront him time and time again. He has become bone tired, and he complains that the whole situation serves neither him nor his students.

    The teacher then declares that it does not matter if they are able to write about what they lack interest in anyway. He finds the situation pointless. Bitterly, he complains repeatedly about the ultimate purpose of all this useless activity.

    Second Stanza: Unjustified Expenditure of Energy

    And shall I take
    The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
    Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume
    Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll
    Of their insults in punishment? – I will not!
    I will not waste myself to embers for them,
    Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot,
    For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
    Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep
    Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
    It all for them, I should hate them –
    – I will sit and wait for the bell.

    The teacher then assumes that even if he commits all of his energy and efforts to these students, he cannot justify to himself the expenditure of his energy.  His soul is being wasted and tortured in attempting to teach the unteachable. He senses that he is being insulted by the students’ lack of motivation and desire to achieve.

    He has determined that there is no value in struggling to impart knowledge to a bunch of seemingly braindead urchins who possess not a shred of desire to acquire an education.  This teacher proclaims his intention to stop using up his soul power in vain attempts to teach these recalcitrant unteachables. 

    The speaker/teacher looks fate in the eye and finds that no matter what he does and no matter what they do, it all goes down to the same nothingness. Whether he teaches or not, it does not matter. Whether they learn or not, it does not matter.

    The weary teacher likens his life to “embers” of a fire that is slowly burning out; he insists that he will not allow himself to become a simple ash heap from burning himself out while attempting to accomplish the impossible.  If sleep will rake the embers clear, he will, instead, save his energy for more worthwhile activities that will actually enhance his life, instead of draining it of vitality. 

    He implies that as a teacher, he is obligated to assume responsibly with all his strength, but by doing so, he wastes himself on a futile mission. Thus, he makes a vow to himself to cease this purposeless activity.  Nothing he does can influence these poor souls, so why, he asks himself, should he continue to attempt it?  Why torture himself as he also tortures the undeliverable?

    The speaker/teacher can no longer care, if, in fact, he ever did. He feels that the effort is not worth it. He must move on. Vaguely yet surely, he is implying that teachers are born, not made.  The disgruntled teacher has arrived at his perfect, liberating thought: like the students who resist learning, he has become the teacher who will resist teaching. 

    He will “sit and wait for the bell,” just as his students are doing. If they do not want to learn, then he concludes, why should he want to teach?  He has finished with wasting his efforts on a futile activity. 

    The struggle between the unwilling students and the unenthusiastic teacher ends in a something of a stalemate. The image of them both sitting and waiting for the bell to ring signals a sad scenario of soulless sterility.

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  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life”

    Image: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life”

    The speaker in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” is offering sage advice regarding the notion that each individual must face life with determination to be successful and fill one’s life with achievements.  The alternative renders the soul dead or simply slumbering without purpose.

    Introduction and Text of “A Psalm of Life”

    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetry was enormously popular and influential in his own lifetime. Today, most readers have heard his quotations so often that they have become “part of the culture.”

    For example, many readers will recognize the line, “Into each life some rain must fall,” and they will find that line in his poem called “The Rainy Day.” No doubt it is this Longfellow poem that helped spread the use of “rain” as a metaphor for the melancholy times in our lives.

    Longfellow was a careful scholar, and his poems reflect an intuition that allowed him to see into the heart and soul of his subject.  Critic and editor J. D. McClatchy says that Longfellow was “fluent in many languages,” and the poet translated such works as Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

    Other Longfellow translations include “The Good Shepherd” by Lope de Vega, “Santa Teresa’s Book-Mark” by Saint Teresa of Ávila, “The Sea Hath Its Pearls” by Heinrich Heine, and several selections by Michelangelo [1].

    The poet also achieved fame as a novelist with his novel Kavanaugh: A Tale. This work was touted by Ralph Waldo Emerson for its contribution to the development of the American novel.  Longfellow also excelled as an essayist with such works as “The Literary Spirit of Our Country,” “Table Talk,” and “Address on the Death of Washington Irving.”

    The poet’s highly spiritual poem “A Psalm of Life” offers a wise piece of advice regarding the issue of facing life with a proper positive attitude.  The alternative is to allow life to defeat one’s spirit which leads to failure and lack of achievement.  

    Longfellow has said that the poem is “a transcript of my thoughts and feelings at the time I wrote, and of the conviction therein expressed, that Life is something more than an idle dream” [2].

    A Psalm of Life

    What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

    Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
    Life is but an empty dream!
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
    And things are not what they seem.

    Life is real! Life is earnest!
    And the grave is not its goal;
    Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
    Was not spoken of the soul.

    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
    Is our destined end or way;
    But to act, that each to-morrow
    Find us farther than to-day.

    Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
    And our hearts, though stout and brave,
    Still, like muffled drums, are beating
    Funeral marches to the grave.

    In the world’s broad field of battle,
    In the bivouac of Life,
    Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
    Be a hero in the strife!

    Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
    Let the dead Past bury its dead!
    Act,— act in the living Present!
    Heart within, and God o’erhead!

    Lives of great men all remind us
    We can make our lives sublime,
    And, departing, leave behind us
    Footprints on the sands of time;

    Footprints, that perhaps another,
    Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
    Seeing, shall take heart again.

    Let us, then, be up and doing,
    With a heart for any fate;
    Still achieving, still pursuing,
    Learn to labor and to wait.

    Sources for the Introduction

    [1] J. D. McClatchy, editor.  Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings. The Library of America. 2000.  Print.

    [2] Andrew Hilen, editor. The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Harvard University Press. 1966.

    Commentary on “A Psalm of Life”

    The speaker in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” presents life as an instrument for striving and achievement; he challenges individuals to think and peer beyond the certainty of death and to tirelessly work toward achieving worthwhile goals. 

    The poem urges readers to take inspiration from the lives of great men of high accomplishments, to act in the eternal now, and to leave behind a legacy (“footprints in the sands of time” ) that will inspire others to follow their own goals on their personal paths through life.

    First Stanza:  Confronting and Rebutting Pessimism

    Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
    Life is but an empty dream!
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
    And things are not what they seem.

    In one of his most widely anthologized poems “A Psalm of Life,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow creates a speaker who is openly and  directly confronting pessimism.  The command, “Tell me not, in mournful numbers,” immediately heralds a defiant tone, indicating that the speaker eschews the notion that life remains nothing more than an “empty dream.” 

    The speaker opines and asserts that a passive, slumbering soul is “dead” and that appearances can be deceiving—life’s true value is not found in relinquishment of duty or rolling over and playing dead.

    Second Stanza:  A Declaration of  Transcendental Life

    Life is real! Life is earnest!
    And the grave is not its goal;
    Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
    Was not spoken of the soul.

    In the second stanza, the speaker is declaring that life is real and earnest. He refutes the notion that the graveyard is life’s ultimate destinational goal.  By quoting the Biblical injunction, “dust thou art, to dust returnest,” he distinguishes an important, vital difference between the physical encasement and the eternal soul, which confirms that the true purpose of living the life of a human being is to transcend mortality.

    Third Stanza:  Defeating the Pairs of Opposites

    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
    Is our destined end or way;
    But to act, that each to-morrow
    Find us farther than to-day.

    The third stanza reveals that pleasure, sorrow, and other sense factors involving the pairs of opposites are also not the ultimate aim of existence. 

    Instead, the speaker calls for active duty and acceptance of responsibilities as the way to progressive evolution. Each day should fulfill some advancement in one’s goal, and not merely remain a repetition of mundane activities or a  stagnation of routine.

    Fourth Stanza:  Time Marches On, but Keep On Keeping On

    Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
    And our hearts, though stout and brave,
    Still, like muffled drums, are beating
    Funeral marches to the grave.

    The speaker then addresses the struggle between human desires and ambition and the relentless onslaught of time as it ticks on and on.  The metaphor of “muffled drums” beating “funeral marches to the grave” emphasizes drearily the inevitability that death continues to approach, yet the speaker continues to urge his fellow human beings to remain “stout and brave” despite these unsavory facts.

    Fifth Stanza:  Confronting the Battlefield of Life

    In the world’s broad field of battle,
    In the bivouac of Life,
    Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
    Be a hero in the strife!

    The speaker in the fifth stanza then turns to a military metaphor, likening life to a battlefield. He exhorts readers again not to remain passive or herd-like (“dumb, driven cattle”), but to always strive heroically as they meet life’s struggles and set-backs.

    Sixth Stanza:  The Importance of the Eternal Now

    Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
    Let the dead Past bury its dead!
    Act,— act in the living Present!
    Heart within, and God o’erhead!

    The speaker now is admonishing his fellows against both relying on the future or on dwelling on the past. The command to “act in the living Present” becomes cardinal to the poem’s message. 

    The phrase “Heart within, and God o’erhead!” states in no uncertain terms that inner determination and divine protection and guidance are major sources of the necessary strength required to meet all the challenges that life is apt to throw at the human mind and heart.

    Seventh Stanza:  Emulating the Example of Greatness

    Lives of great men all remind us
    We can make our lives sublime,
    And, departing, leave behind us
    Footprints on the sands of time;

    In the seventh stanza, the speaker is providing the example of great men to inspire the reader.  The lives of great men of the past and present clearly and convincingly demonstrate that it is possible for each human being to achieve greatness and to leave a lasting mark in the fields of endeavor to which they have been called.

    By keeping in clear sight worthy goals and determining to work assiduously to achieve those goal, any individual can surely succeed and leave “footprints on the sands of time.”   Those “footprints” are found in the histories of those great men and women who achieved their goals and gave to humankind tangible tools. 

    One thinks of such people as the Founding Fathers, who worked tirelessly to bestow on their country a document called the Constitution, which would allow the citizens to live in freedom instead of a monarchy or dictatorship.  Or one might bring to mind Thomas Edison with his inventions such as the light bulb that ordinary life uses on a daily basis. 

    Eighth Stanza:  Setting a Positive Example

    Footprints, that perhaps another,
    Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
    Seeing, shall take heart again.

    The speaker then expands on the idea of a life legacy to all others who may just need a boost to continue marching down their own chosen paths.  One need not aim for fame and renown to leave behind those “footprints.” 

    Whatever good one leaves behind can offer hope and encouragement to others who are struggling.  This notion emphasizes the importance of setting a positive example for others because one can never know who might benefit by learning about or seeing how hard we worked for our own goals.

    Ninth Stanza:  Perfecting a Stalwart Attitude 

    Let us, then, be up and doing,
    With a heart for any fate;
    Still achieving, still pursuing,
    Learn to labor and to wait.

    The speaker concludes his psalm with a solemn call to action. He urges his readers to remain focused on their goals and duties, and to remain resilient in facing adversity.  He wants his fellows to pursue their goal with great determination.

    He also wants humanity to nurture perseverance and patience.  He admonishes and urges his audience to be industrious and resilient, to pursue goals with determination, and to cultivate a stalwart attitude.  Each individual must”Learn to labor and to wait” as they continue to pursue and achieve.

    The Power of Longfellow’s Psalm

    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” remains a powerful musing on the human condition, as it performs its function through a pleasant meter, sophisticated rime-scheme, and motivating calls for action. 

    Longfellow’s psalm is not merely an harangue against mortality; it offers instead a set of instructions for deliberate living, as Henry David Thoreau insisted that we went to Walden’s Pond to learn to “live deliberately.”

    The psalm’s abiding appeal is that it has the ability to inspire readers to rise above despair and lethargy, to act courageously, and to hopefully leave a meaningful legacy of guideposts for coming generations.

    Image: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow   Commemorative Stamp

  • 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: