On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year by Lord Byron

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!

The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze—
A funeral pile.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share,
But wear the chain.

But 'tis not thus — and 'tis not here —
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now,
Where glory decks the hero's bier,
Or binds his brow.

The sword, the banner and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.

Awake! (not Greece— she is awake!)
Awake, my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood!— unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.

If thou regret'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here:— up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

Seek out— less often sought than found—
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.

Today is Byron's 226th birthday, a fact I was regrettably made to realise whilst filling in the date in an exam. I felt it was so representative of my life as a whole - incessantly teased with hints towards my real interests whilst completing something economics coerces me into. It is strange that most people in this country would consider themselves free when asked - when one really considers the world, it becomes quite clear that the individual under capitalism spends his entire life depleted and tyrannised by the weight of false necessity. Once we accept this as freedom, we will gladly accept the negation of the personality at the hands of others, and I believe this accounts for the preponderance of dull people at large today. The fact that all activity must be committed first for others is unconscionably inimical to the human spirit. 

I have a terrible habit of digressing wildly. The point is that this short poem is, in my opinion, one of the most challenging of Byron's (and also one of his last, if not his last). There is so much going on, and so many countervailing forces that it becomes difficult to discern his true feelings, and this is probably his intention. There is the conflict between youth and age, as must occur at an age such as 36, too old to really be a 'youth' but perhaps too young to really be a respectable adult. He writes of the death of passion and then, later, how adulthood impels him to 'Tread those reviving passions down'. Of course this is how encroaching adulthood feels - one is expected to be solemn and professional in today's world, and the word 'childish' is thoroughly derogatory in nature. There is with age a responsibility which is utterly baleful, and a burgeoning indifference to life's offerings, which Byron explained in a letter to Shelley: 'As I grow older, the indifference--not to life, for we love it by instinct--but to the stimuli of life, increases'. It is interesting to note that Byron died before he saw his 37th birthday, almost as if the emotional death of adulthood was a negation of his entire being, and that he was fated to embody the spirit of youth forevermore.

I cannot stay to chat, because I have another exam tomorrow, the content of which I am certain is relating to economics in some way, but I will use this evening to determine precisely this relationship. And thus we see freedom today - the freedom to be forced by that most vomitworthy thing, 'employment prospects', to do things one does not enjoy. Such is this distorted world. 

There's Not a Joy the World Can Give by Lord Byron

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest,
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath -
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

Oh, could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene;
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

I've been perched above the keyboard for some time, like a kind of domesticated vulture which has been told to write minutes for a business meeting. 'Where the fuck do I begin with this?' it would think in its vulturine tongue, claws lacerating the cheap plastic keys. The Tower of Babel would rise between it and the screen, precluding all expression on this decidedly English keyboard. For how might a vulture express itself if it cannot command a language common with its recipients? Indeed, how might it express itself if it cannot command a language common with its own heart? Words, for all their power, are blunt instruments, representing only vaguely what one might wish to say at any given point. It takes an incredible manipulator of these blunt objects to make something at all incisive. I can't make anything except rock soup at the moment. What I can do is read poems other people have written and hope that they approximate my thoughts. Then I post them on my moaning, anile blog and scavenge from the corpses. In this respect, the vulture is awakened to one of the secrets of life; I think it is important to learn from the lives of dusty, dead people. For one thing, they are usually far more interesting than shiny, non-dead people, who largely seem to lurch through life with their massive, cruciferous skulls filled with quotidian wank. 'Bread,' they say, 'need bread so don't die,' heaving their unwilling cadaver to the local supermarket (a word which warrants neither the root 'super' nor 'market'). All people seem to strive to perfect is the somatic, the material, the pointless. This is the capitalist delusion. But no more talk of capitalism here! 

What can I say of this poem? It describes my thoughts at present. In fact, I have always suspected that all people live the double life presented in stanza four, but I of course cannot be certain. It's perfectly possible to be affable and kind when one is flayed inside. Indeed it is not just possible but predictable. Look at people as you walk in public - there is usually something degraded in their aspects, some kernel of woe. I cannot stand this delirious notion that everybody is oh so happy. Of course this cannot be true, but what is so maddening is that people portray themselves as such. Anybody who is truly happy is ignorant to the black truth of the world.

This is why I begrudge animals their passivity, their galvanic responses to all of life's stimuli. By dispensing with this nonsense of rationality, they live in the present. More than this - they can only live in the present. There is nothing to suggest that an earwig has a conception of its mortality, or its ageing, or its evanescence. We live in the past, the present and the future, and thereby do not live at all. The blank walls of infinity which compass our brief spans somehow suffocate what we do have until we have nothing at all. Man treats himself so seriously - I sit here typing at a keyboard, a colossal shrew in a rotating chair. The vulture I discussed earlier, perhaps. What kind of perverse world is this? I'm sat in a library with solemn faces, Easter Island moai, strewn round me at indeterminate points, tapping plastic nodules on a plastic oblong. Their craggy features peer down on the buttons, to make sure order is maintained in the World of the Keys. This is our significance. We are a strange sect of button-tappers, bedizened in the most gaudy, modern clothing imaginable. Our god is Solemnity and our purpose is self-denial to the end. I do hope I'm not going mad. Yet there is something utterly bizarre in this entire experience. The concept of a library is the most ordered, artificial, sterile conceit. What is there here but dullness and waiting? Really, these people look as if they have been exhumed out of formaldehyde. 'The mortal coldness of the soul' descended on these people in the womb, I fear. Conceived in the freezer aisle, perhaps. People are dull and this is all. We should all be either screaming or laughing. Instead, we sit, composed like dead things, propped up with brittle bones through, in many cases, regrettable items of clothing. This is humanity today - domesticated and dull. I cannot bring myself to be excited at humankind - it really does tire me. Yet, like a hopeful fool, I return to it, arms wider, only to be rebuffed with improved vitality. I do wonder sometimes if it is I that is dull, and all the world is riotously interesting.

I don't know what happened in that last paragraph. I feel as if my brain has wept characters onto a page. I didn't even particularly discuss the poem. This is the first time I've ever composed a blog post in a library, and my misanthropic tendencies have made a grand appearance. Yet this is how I feel. 

Hypochonder by Goethe

Der Teufel hol das Menschengeschlecht!
Man möchte rasend werden!
Da nehm ich mir so eifrig vor:
Will niemand weiter sehen,
Will all das Volk Gott und sich selbst
Und dem Teufel überlassen!
Und kaum seh ich ein Menschengesicht,
So hab ichs wieder lieb.


Prose translation:

Spleen
Devil take the human race! It's enough to drive one crazy! I keep making such firm resolutions to stop seeing people altogether and consign the whole nation to God and itself and the devil! And then I have only to catch sight of a human face and I love it again.

*

Isn't it incredible how a poem written in a language of which one has a poor understanding can be so melodious? This said, I do wish I could understand this without the notes - I can't imagine reading a translation of Byron or Shakespeare and receiving even a tenth of its magniloquence. There's also, as I'm about to explain, a weird sense of paranoia surrounding translations, at least for me there is. Even if the poet himself were to translate it, passion is such an evanescent thing that the translation would probably seem anaemic in comparison. This must be magnified hugely when translated by someone who did not even pen the piece to begin with. 

For example, I am not sure why my copy of this poem translates 'Hypochonder' to 'Spleen' - my German is remarkably bad but translation websites accord with what one might naturally assume and translate it to 'Hypochondriac' instead. I therefore hope the translator of my edition is not merely positing the words he feels are most conducive to the tone of each poem (n.b. 'splenetic', the adjective form of 'spleen', is one of the most entertaining words in existence. It explodes out of the mouth like some sort of incisor-punctured cherry tomato, laving acidic juices against the recipient's heretofore untomatoed countenance. Or, if you like, it unfurls like a colossal worm, cascades from the larynx like pestilence from Death's unholy maws and molests one's interlocutor. I'm all for plurality of description.) 

I do try not to type arrant bollocks, I really do. I know the success:fail ratio in this is pretty unflattering, but it's in my in-tray. Well then, solemnity mode activated: I am of the opinion that misanthropy, as expressed in this poem, is terribly misunderstood. Misanthropists are assumed to be base, maleficent, and overridingly pessimistic. I argue the opposite - misanthropists are frustrated optimists, they are so hopeful that their hopes cannot but be crushed. Misanthropists feel more keenly than most the wickedness of Man, and come to hate what they cannot alter. In short, misanthropy requires of its holder, more often than not, a great expectation of men; indeed, it is paradoxically those who are satisfied with mankind who debase it with their low estimation of its potential. Expressing satisfaction with man's monstrosities is certainly more wicked than to think man can do infinitely better. It is they who are pessimistic, it is they who wish to see humankind crushed under the weight of its own incompetence. It requires a horrendous individual to look on the atrocities mankind commits with such grim regularity and maintain no contempt for it. One might argue that mankind also does nice things, an argument I would refute on factual grounds but also on logical grounds - this is like saying, 'Yes, it is true that Ian from next door murdered my dog, but he is not evil! He sent me an elaborate Christmas card the very same year.' I say it takes a weak fool, and even an evil fool, not to condemn evil where it is reposed.

Surely this can be the only explanation of the sentiment of this poem. There is an instinctive love of mankind but also a resignation at its actions. A hopeless, despairing misanthropist as popularly perceived would not have this instinctive love of humanity, rather a sterile and irrational hatred to mankind's entire being. One must remember: misanthropy is, at its core, an unwelcome paradox. It is hate founded in love. It is the act of gazing with utter despair on the desecration of something profound and delicate; baying hopelessly at a swelling edifice of hate, ignorance and cauterising turpitude which compasses with malignance the sacrosanct. Misanthropy is the hallmark of the troubled soul.

I am supposed to be writing an essay on public expenditure. Though public expenditure is one of my heart's ferocious passions, and indeed I am known for my propensity to discuss, in violent terms, public expenditure in my sleep, I oddly find this more interesting. This blank, infinite, indifferent box of nothingness into which I am burying words which will certainly not be read is more interesting than public expenditure. I know - crazy talk... public expenditure is commonly held to be the most interesting topic humankind has contrived, yet I am a man of radical views and I will assert my unpopular opinion to the last. I will even go so far as to say, at the risk of inciting a riot, that public expenditure is overrated. It has become a concern for the masses, and is totally exhausted as a lode for refined enjoyment. Frankly I have stopped caring about public expenditure, and I urge you, against your heart's judgement, to join me in my disaffection. It simply will not be as fashionable in five years as it appears today. And, with this vaticination, I leave you gaunt and harrowed, like the stump of a felled tree. Avaunt!

All Is Vanity, Saith the Preacher by Lord Byron

I.
Fame, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me;
My goblets blush'd from every vine,
And lovely forms caress'd me;
I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender:
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.

II.
I strive to number o'er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.
There rose no day, there roll'd no hour
Of pleasure unembitter'd;
And not a trapping deck'd my power
That gall'd not while it glitter'd.

III.
The serpent of the field, by art
And spells, is won from harming;
But that which coils around the heart,
Oh! who hath power of charming?
It will not list to wisdom's lore,
Nor music's voice can lure it;
But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.

Today is National Poetry Day, one of those arbitrary events which paradoxically engenders in the beholder a sense both of hope and futility. Hope because it is at least heartening that poetry has not been entirely forgotten, but overwhelmingly a sense of futility in that poetry's standing in the world necessitates such a ridiculous gesture to begin with. Where does one begin? It is like having a national day for roller skating, or digressing excessively, or eating cheese. It almost means nothing. Those who would roller skate if left to their own devices (we can assume roller skates to have a place among these devices) will roller skate regardless of the day, and those who do not will hardly take up the activity simply because of some misplaced allegiance to nominal, calendrical rubbish. The day would simply serve as some kind of generator of strife between those who roller skate and say, 'That's a nice idea,' and those who do not roller skate and say, 'That's not a nice idea.' I like to think humans are not so shallow as to be swayed by such nonsense, but perhaps I speak too highly of my fellow bipedal primates. 

I think I would be a little more sanguine were it not for the absolute conspicuity of the fact that poetry is dead. Like rock and roll, it simply is not made anymore. Of course there are people who brand themselves as poets, and I'm sure there are people who brand themselves as supporters of the rock and roll movement, but let us not pretend that this is anything more than a token gesture. These movements are impossible to wilfully resurrect, and I cannot imagine any sort of new Romantic age unless there was a colossal coincidence of talent. It would not occur because some children had seen the hashtag #NationalPoetryDay on Twitter. Certainly, it seems nobody has been much inspired, all tweets containing fragments of prose nonsense demarcated by that oh-so-poetic line break. Please. Modern poetry is to me indistinguishable from rap lyrics, and this is naturally a cause for great regret. There is nothing poetic in the anaemia of modern poetry. One can almost imagine the Muses sitting on Mount Parnassus, passing a joint and watching episodes of The Only Way is Essex in their onesies. 

But this poem! Shitting Norah! It is perhaps tragic and certainly conceited to say that Byron is one of the people with whom I most sympathise, but there you have it. I've just mocked the state of all modern poetry, my conceit is already exposed. But seriously, I cannot say whether Byron had some supernal knowledge of the human character, or whether he had some supernal knowledge of my character, for I can only speak for myself, but he had some supernal knowledge of something. Who can say that they have not at times experienced a feeling of futility, of persecution even? Byron seems to summarise these feelings in a way unlike any other, he has a way of speaking not to academic fustiness but to the soul; Will Self writes of Byron that: 'I've always found George Gordon (Lord Byron) to be the most proximate of those literary and historical figures whose towering eminence and temporal removal should, by rights, place them at a distance.' So perhaps it is not just me. I think this proximate quality to his work can be attributed to its overriding candour. 

The title of this poem seems to come from Ecclesiastes: 'Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.' This is doubly interesting because it is precisely Ecclesiastes and Byron that Bertrand Russell synthesises in a chapter on 'Byronic Unhappiness' in The Conquest of Happiness, and whilst he makes an elegant attempt I'm not sure he wholly mollifies my pessimism. That's probably quite bad, isn't it? One of the biggest geniuses of the past 100 years cannot inculcate some optimism in me. 

Anyway, that's all folks. I keep reciting the first four lines of the third stanza in my head over and over again at the moment - much like a pop song but without the brain expungement. I think this is one of the lost and unappreciated charms of poetry - it has great music. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining poetry's demise, for music is far more accessible now than in previous centuries. It is now possible for the unwashed masses to gain a similar effect through the far less forbidding medium of pop music. Just a thought. 

Fairy-Land by Edgar Allan Poe

A depiction of the poem by Edmund Dulac

Dim vales—and shadowy floods—
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over!
Huge moons there wax and wane—
Again—again—again—
Every moment of the night—
Forever changing places—
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces
About twelve by the moon-dial
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down—still down—and down
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain's eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be—
O'er the strange woods—o'er the sea—
Over spirits on the wing—
Over every drowsy thing—
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light—
And then, how deep!—O, deep!
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like——almost any thing—
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before—
Videlicet a tent—
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.

This poem was, quite gashingly, published by the time Poe was 20 years old. Wikipedia claims that the first person to whom Poe offered the poem for publication 'threw the submission into the fire and joyfully watched it burn,' in what is probably one of the most idiotic responses to such a poem. Others dismissed the poem as nonsensical, which to me would seem almost excessively complimentary. It's a strange human insistence that almost everything must have a secret meaning, and nothing can simply be. I do not suppose many would dismiss a wonderfully tended garden as nonsensical - it fulfils its purpose simply through its presence, its beauty, its redolence. Of course one may organise flowers in such a way as to create 'meaning', but this is an artifice, a dead accretion. In many ways it is a truer representation of the world to present the world in the way this poem does - lacking meaning, lacking premeditation or divine sentience. This is what Wilde tried to show, and many of his poems are almost devoid of 'deeper meaning' as a result, resembling sketches more than contrived visions. Read his Impressions for a good example.

So it is sheer beauty this poem of Poe's is concerned with. If it failed in this charge then I would agree that meaning is all that could save it, but the poem certainly does not fail. It is perhaps premature of me to eulogise a poem merely through its use of several of my favourite words, but then being premature in one's opinions is part of the fun. 'Atomy', 'dissever' and 'tempest' are three such words, the kind of words which, used in sufficient quantity, put free space in my underwear at a premium (I have just realised this could be interpreted as a scatological remark... it is not. No infirmity haunts my alimentary canal. Just thought I'd make that clear).

There's a kind of disorientation permeating each line of this poem, and the rhythm is quite reminiscent of the way Shelley would write. This perfectly suits the subject matter, augmenting the already prominent ethereality that runs through the poem. Poe seemed to have a thing for dashes in his poetry as well, and they are used to great effect here; there is a real feeling of sensory overload. This is quite an unconventional poem but I think it needs to be. Just look at the way we realise the rhyme scheme has changed at 'Forever changing places' - I find that so charming. 

By the way, I have just discovered that women can buy high-heeled trainers. Well, men can buy them also. Even dogs can buy them if they have the money and a preternatural dexterity to facilitate the exchange of funds. But the shoes themselves, how gauche! I weep at the sight. This is what too often happens when pragmatism and aesthetics mix - the resultant mess is impractical and looks like crap. This is to say, you will be late to the fashion show and will be derided when you get there. Sometimes it is best to put all your eggs in one basket. This poem does just this - it does not pretend to be practical or meaningful, it is merely aesthetically pleasing. All poetry can be interpreted in this way if one so wishes. Therefore, I implore you to put all your eggs in one basket and hop aboard the Poetrymobile. 

[Later edit: Poe writes in The Poetic Principle, in a precursor to the aesthetic view on poetry that Wilde often gains sole credit for, of the absolute primacy of beauty in poetry:

'To recapitulate then:- I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with Truth.'

Reassuring to my sentiment on the matter, he then clarifies:

'It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of Passion, or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage, for they may subserve incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the work: but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.'

Clearly, then, the lack of 'meaning' in this poem is quite deliberate.]

The Definition of Love by Andrew Marvell

My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced,

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp'd into a planisphere.

As lines, so love's oblique, may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.

I am more aware than ever that the poems housed in this blog emphatically do not require my commentary, nor anyone else's, for they speak for themselves with a fluency even the greatest prose cannot hope to emulate. Therefore I do it only for enjoyment, the very act of writing itself. The praxis of hitting buttons in an order such as to produce something slightly intelligible. It's sort of like Guitar Hero in that respect, though one can achieve a perfect score in Guitar Hero which is unattainable in writing, the closest being a poem like the one above. This is probably due to the parameters poetry imposes - there is always the temptation in prose to add another word to a sentence, but poetry rewards the parsimonious more generously. I find it fascinating that this economy does not produce something spartan and dull, not in the right hands at least. Conversely, by cutting out all the gratuities you create a finer distillation of beauty than if you'd tried to say more. Perhaps this should not be unexpected. 

Part of me simply wants to say 'This poem is brilliant because... just look at it!' This would be quite acceptable if I was writing of a painting, but poetry for some reason seems to be seen as more complex than that. To me the words in a poem such as this are expensive paints - they are beautiful in their own way but are most effective when used in tandem. The word 'love' is fine, but nobody would want to see a whole canvas of it. This analogy is not recognised too often, probably because language too often is an exercise in pragmatism. If we had to use paint to order at a restaurant, we might soon tire of seeing paintings. The only way to overcome this would be to use unnecessarily extravagant strokes for the heck of it. This is all poetry is. 

This poem, then, is not deficient in the beauty department. 'Magnanimous Despair alone' is a fantastic, paradoxical line. 'Upon Impossibility', 'Their union would her ruin be', 'And her tyrannic power depose' are other such examples. And of course, like art, we can draw conclusions from the work too. Words are, after all, only symbols. This is a lament for the incompatibility of love and eternity. This is similar to the sentiment expressed in To His Coy Mistress, a poem which still makes me gasp with its grace, in which the poetic voice longs for 'world enough and time' in which to express his love. That poem is rather more sanguine than this one, however. He writes:

'Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.'

This is in clear contrast to the undercurrent of resignation in this poem. There is no suggestion that their love can 'never meet'. But both poems are exquisite, being effectively the two ways of looking at the same reality.

To Inez by Lord Byron

Probably minutes after doing something of vague illegality

Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,
Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

And dost thou ask what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang even thou must fail to soothe?

It is not love, it is not hate,
Nor low Ambition's honours lost,
That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I prized the most:

It is that weariness which springs
From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,
That will not look beyond the tomb,
But cannot hope for rest before.

What exile from himself can flee?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life--the demon Thought.

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
And taste of all that I forsake:
Oh! may they still of transport dream,
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst;
And all my solace is to know,
Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.

What is that worst? Nay, do not ask -
In pity from the search forbear:
Smile on--nor venture to unmask
Man's heart, and view the hell that's there.

Byron appears to be getting a disproportionate share of my attention on this blog but I don't much mind. Not when it allows me to post a surfeit of pieces like this, at least. I am fast starting to believe that he may be the best English poet, and certainly of the past 200 years, much though I love Poe and Shelley and Keats and all the rest. Before that, though, I think the contenders are Shakespeare and Milton, who are both nonpareils in their own unique ways. It's impossible and fruitless to attempt to compare them. But Byron was one of those very rare figures, like Oscar Wilde, who seemed so ahead of their time, and our time for that matter. There was such an understanding of what it was to be human - the absurdity, the folly, the rare moments of splendour that sanctify the endeavour. If anything, we have made a regression from the 1800s in terms of exploration of the human condition. Gone are the days of poems like this - nowadays it is enough to write about eating at Starbucks, or doing a shit, or both simultaneously, I can't stop you. All this wrought under the anaemic guise of what they call 'free verse', a rather deceptive moniker. It is not free poetry at all - it is the most stilted, constipated type of poetry imaginable. It is bound by its own indolence, poetry that has lost the will to live, and this is not freedom. And personally I think it is generous to confer the name 'poetry' on what is a collection of prose fragments. To me, metre is the heart of poetry. It is the sway and cadence of each line that generates the majesty required for the title 'poetry'. Poe wrote in The Poetic Principle that 'rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected- is so vitally important an adjunct that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality.' So there.

I'm not quite sure why, but the last line of this poem rather disarmed me. I just somehow was not expecting that choice of words, but this is conducive rather than deleterious to the general effect. Additionally, the rhythm is so perfect. It is a belief I expect I shall forever stand by that poetry in metre has far more power to establish some imperium over the soul, and the final line of this poem exploits metre with ruinous impact (in a good way of course). It reminds me of the final line of Poe's Alone, 'Of a demon in my view,' which is prefaced by such momentum that the the curtness of the ending is all the more potent.

This poem is so clearly Romantic, its subject being that kind of solitary woe you might associate with the Byronic hero. People would often say of Byron that he looked at times rapt in another dimension, as if considering some exclusive misery. Indeed, he probably was, but he did try to affect dissatisfaction too, to bolster his appearance as the Romantic ideal - pale, thin, mysterious and haunted.

Overall, then, and indeed by any specifics, a cracking poem, Gromit. I can't speak for anyone else but I have a huge sympathy with what Byron writes here, and that's probably why I praise the piece so much. I should mention that it's part of Canto I of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which is well worth a read. Until our next convocation.  

Sonnet 94 by Shakespeare

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

I am particularly fond of this sonnet because I was, at the time of reading it, having similar thoughts. Whilst I have no doubt that Shakespeare is not referring to the legal system, I feel the poem can still be interpreted as such. I was contemplating the law and how, whilst of course stymieing the intentions of criminals, it also makes the task of discerning the villainous from the virtuous more difficult for the everyday person. Criminals, who would with absolute freedom have killed or raped or stolen a 4B pencil from the local art merchant, under the law adopt the appearance of a virtuous person. Whatever one's morality, one is shown to be moral by abidance to the law. Of course, I'm not advocating the punishment of thought crime, but it did seem to me that those who are acting morally only for fear of retribution and personal plight should be considered less virtuous than those who acted morally regardless of the law. It is more commendable to express restraint of one's own volition than to express restraint under the fetters of judicial edicts. I absolutely detest cliché unless used ironically or comically, but the law effectively proffers wolves sheeps' clothing. Whilst you may say that this not much matters, for they cannot act on these villainous impulses under the law, I would postulate that a willingness to act immorally must taint every aspect of a person's character. It is legal, for example, to continuously act selfishly, and almost every illegality imaginable involves a heaped spoonful of selfishness. Having been proactively debarred from homicide (I am using one of the worst crimes in order to make the argument clear, most offenders of course are not murderers), this does not stop someone from being a general arse. I would rather not associate with those who are letting me live only because of the law. 

After that fairly circuitous segue, another interesting thing about this poem is that its sentiment is later appropriated, knowingly or not, by J. K. Rowling. She writes in one of the Harry Potter books: 'If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.' I was going to find out exactly which Harry Potter book this comes from, but I fear even J. K. Rowling would not be able to summon a dissimulation of interest if I were to waste the time doing so. Apropos, I don't think she was consciously channelling Shakespeare, but it's quaint how it seems nobody can escape his yoke. 

Spiffing, boffo, copacetic, frabjous and all that. I have no more to say. I suppose it doesn't readily occur to me, though perhaps it should, how absolutely egoistic it must seem - and is - for me to direct attention away from a Shakespeare sonnet and towards my own witterings. I have far exceeded his 14 lines and still if this was a job interview he would have the job before my interview had finished. Quality over quantity, eh. 

A Satyr against Reason and Mankind by John Wilmot

I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear, Or anything but that vain animal, Who is so proud of being rational. The following is just an excerpt from this charmingly bitter poem by John Wilmot. The full text can be pursued with little exertion by clicking on the link which I will beneficently provide: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/mankind.html Were I (who to my cost already am One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man) A spirit free to choose, for my own share What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear, I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear, Or anything but that vain animal, Who is so proud of being rational.    The senses are too gross, and he'll contrive A sixth, to contradict the other five, And before certain instinct, will prefer Reason, which fifty times for one does err; Reason, an ignis fatuus of the mind, Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind, Pathless and dangerous wand'ring ways it takes Through error's fenny bogs and thorny brakes; Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain; Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down Into doubt's boundless sea where, like to drown, Books bear him up awhile, and make him try To swim with bladders of philosophy; In hopes still to o'ertake th' escaping light; The vapour dances in his dazzling sight Till, spent, it leaves him to eternal night. Then old age and experience, hand in hand, Lead him to death, and make him understand, After a search so painful and so long, That all his life he has been in the wrong. Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies, Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.    Pride drew him in, as cheats their bubbles catch, And made him venture to be made a wretch. His wisdom did his happiness destroy, Aiming to know that world he should enjoy. And wit was his vain, frivolous pretense Of pleasing others at his own expense. For wits are treated just like common whores: First they're enjoyed, and then kicked out of doors. The pleasure past, a threatening doubt remains That frights th' enjoyer with succeeding pains. Women and men of wit are dangerous tools, And ever fatal to admiring fools: Pleasure allures, and when the fops escape, 'Tis not that they're beloved, but fortunate, And therefore what they fear, at heart they hate.

I only discovered this poet a while ago, but I consider myself fortunate in having done so. He was a contemporary of the more famous Andrew Marvell, and was a courtier of Charles II's court during the Restoration. His full title was John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester. As it happens, he rather impressively died of venereal disease, and a play attributed to his name is called Sodom, or The Quintessence of Debauchery, which I think is a staggeringly good name. What I find so fascinating about him though, and this seeming contradiction is evident in this particular poem, is that he was writing in the Enlightenment era but seems to write in a completely Romantic fashion. Many would attribute the beginnings of the Romantic era to Blake but perhaps John Wilmot is a candidate. I noticed quite soon that Wilmot refers to man as a 'vain animal'. Byron would later refer to man as 'man, vain insect!'

Wilmot espouses so many Romantic shibboleths in this poem that you would be forgiven for thinking it was written 200 years after it was. There is the love of nature, the rejection of reason, and the propulsive device of subtle misanthropy that is so characteristic of writers such as Byron. There are so many quotes I could isolate to aid me in this conclusion, but this is perhaps the most potent:

'His wisdom did his happiness destroy,

Aiming to know that world he should enjoy.'

These are complaints that writers such as Poe would later express. In fact, in Poe's Sonnet to Science, Poe writes (if I remember correctly): 'Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,/Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?' He then goes on to write about how mythology, fantasy and frivolity are crushed under the weight of reason. This is the sort of point Richard Dawkins faces on a regular basis - people ask him questions such as 'Doesn't religion give people a more palatable view of the world?' and he will reply very astringently with 'You may prefer it, but that doesn't make it true. Besides, science is infinitely more fascinating.' Part of me does agree with this, and science is fascinating, but recourse to fantasy can be salubrious to the troubled soul. Part of me wishes I could be so constructed as to believe simpler explanations of the universe. Diplomatically, I think a synthesis between reason and instinct should be encouraged - it would be terribly dull to live every waking moment in a very matter-of-fact way, but it would be an affront on man's potential and the splendour of nature to spend all of one's allotment in a chrysalis of ignorance. This is one reason I dearly hope religion is not completely eradicated by atheism. Even Christopher Hitchens, an antitheist, admitted this - it is the struggle between reason and fantasy that drives man to the better construction of each. 

I hope that was not too great an excursion. In short, I think this is a very important poem. Apart from this, though, it is impeccably written. 'Reason, an ignis fatuus of the mind,' must be one of my favourite lines of poetry. It is possibly the shortest summary of the Romantic movement I have encountered. I can almost overlook the massive injustices inherent in the aristocratic, feudal nature of the times if the aristocracy were producing writing like this (I'm not sure the composition of the country is too different now, however.) Bertrand Russell makes the point in In Praise of Idleness that most of humanity's philosophical, literary, mental advances have been as a result of the leisure afforded to the wealthy, though this is not a recommendation for an unencumbered minority but an unencumbered majority. The unjust wealth of kings brought hundreds of years of feudal oppression, but it also brought incredible writing, music and architecture that would probably never have been produced under today's capitalism.

Wilmot makes it clear that these chains of reason are of man's own construction, reminding me of Blake's 'Mind-forg'd manacles'. 'Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain' is a great quote that exposes man's departure from nature. The final line of the poem, not included above but equally frandibulous is 'Man differs more from man, than man from beast,' the point being that artificial ideology and such removes us from our natural state. I just adore this poem. Read the full thing and bask in its brilliance.

The Dream by Lord Byron, Part 1

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world, 
A boundary between the things misnamed 
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, 
And a wide realm of wild reality, 
And dreams in their development have breath, 
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; 
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, 
They take a weight from off waking toils, 
They do divide our being; they become 
A portion of ourselves as of our time, 
And look like heralds of eternity; 
They pass like spirits of the past -they speak 
Like sibyls of the future; they have power - 
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; 
They make us what we were not -what they will, 
And shake us with the vision that's gone by, 
The dread of vanished shadows -Are they so? 
Is not the past all shadow? -What are they? 
Creations of the mind? -The mind can make 
Substances, and people planets of its own 
With beings brighter than have been, and give 
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. 
I would recall a vision which I dreamed 
Perchance in sleep -for in itself a thought, 
A slumbering thought, is capable of years, 
And curdles a long life into one hour. 


OK, this poem is incredible. I was very tempted to end the blog post there but I don't have much else to do, so ramble I will. This is only the first part of the poem, from nine in total. I was considering including the whole thing but it is probably slightly too long for a blog post. 

One thing to note about this poem is that it is very uncharacteristic of Byron to write in blank verse, he was a staunch defender of rhyming verse. He said of Milton's Paradise Lost that, ‘I am not persuaded that the Paradise Lost would not have been more nobly conveyed to posterity, not perhaps in heroic couplets – although even they could sustain the subject, if well balanced – but in the stanza of Spenser, or of Tasso, or in the terza rima of Dante, which the powers of Milton could easily have grafted on our language.’

Actually it seems Byron rather enjoyed criticising established greats of poetry, though of course he was entirely entitled to do so. He said of Shakespeare that: 'Shakespeare’s name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down. He had no invention as to stories, none whatever. He took all his plots from old novels, and threw their stories into a dramatic shape, at as little expense of thought as you or I could turn his plays back again into prose tales. That he threw over whatever he did write some flashes of genius, nobody can deny: but this was all.' This seems rather severe but honestly there is nothing terribly factually incorrect here. It is Shakespeare's masterful use of language that immortalises his works more than the stories themselves.

Anyway, I must leave now, I require a cold shower after reading that poem.

Dante's Inferno, Canto V, Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The infernal hurricane that never rests/Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;

Illustration by Gustave Doré

Thus I descended out of the first circle
Down to the second, that less space begirds,
And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.
There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;
Examines the transgressions at the entrance;
Judges, and sends according as he girds him.
I say, that when the spirit evil-born
Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;
And this discriminator of transgressions
Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;
Girds himself with his tail as many times
As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.
Always before him many of them stand;
They go by turns each one unto the judgment;
They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.
"O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry
Comest," said Minos to me, when he saw me,
Leaving the practice of so great an office,
"Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;
Let not the portal's amplitude deceive thee."
And unto him my Guide: "Why criest thou too?
Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;
It is so willed there where is power to do
That which is willed; and ask no further question."
And now begin the dolesome notes to grow
Audible unto me; now am I come
There where much lamentation strikes upon me.
I came into a place mute of all light,
Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,
If by opposing winds 't is combated.
The infernal hurricane that never rests
Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.
When they arrive before the precipice,
There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,
There they blaspheme the puissance divine.
I understood that unto such a torment
The carnal malefactors were condemned,
Who reason subjugate to appetite.
And as the wings of starlings bear them on
In the cold season in large band and full,
So doth that blast the spirits maledict;
It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;
No hope doth comfort them for evermore,
Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.
And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,
Making in air a long line of themselves,
So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,
Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.
Whereupon said I: "Master, who are those
People, whom the black air so castigates?"
"The first of those, of whom intelligence
Thou fain wouldst have," then said he unto me,
"The empress was of many languages.
To sensual vices she was so abandoned,
That lustful she made licit in her law,
To remove the blame to which she had been led.
She is Semiramis, of whom we read
That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;
She held the land which now the Sultan rules.
The next is she who killed herself for love,
And broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus;
Then Cleopatra the voluptuous."
Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless
Seasons revolved; and saw the great Achilles,
Who at the last hour combated with Love.
Paris I saw, Tristan; and more than a thousand
Shades did he name and point out with his finger,
Whom Love had separated from our life.
After that I had listened to my Teacher,
Naming the dames of eld and cavaliers,
Pity prevailed, and I was nigh bewildered.
And I began: "O Poet, willingly
Speak would I to those two, who go together,
And seem upon the wind to be so light."
And, he to me: "Thou'lt mark, when they shall be
Nearer to us; and then do thou implore them
By love which leadeth them, and they will come."
Soon as the wind in our direction sways them,
My voice uplift I: "O ye weary souls!
Come speak to us, if no one interdicts it."
As turtle-doves, called onward by desire,
With open and steady wings to the sweet nest
Fly through the air by their volition borne,
So came they from the band where Dido is,
Approaching us athwart the air malign,
So strong was the affectionate appeal.
"O living creature gracious and benignant,
Who visiting goest through the purple air
Us, who have stained the world incarnadine,
If were the King of the Universe our friend,
We would pray unto him to give thee peace,
Since thou hast pity on our woe perverse.
Of what it pleases thee to hear and speak,
That will we hear, and we will speak to you,
While silent is the wind, as it is now.
Sitteth the city, wherein I was born,
Upon the sea-shore where the Po descends
To rest in peace with all his retinue.
Love, that on gentle heart doth swiftly seize,
Seized this man for the person beautiful
That was ta'en from me, and still the mode offends me.
Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,
Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,
That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;
Love has conducted us unto one death;
Caina waiteth him who quenched our life!"
These words were borne along from them to us.
As soon as I had heard those souls tormented,
I bowed my face, and so long held it down
Until the Poet said to me: "What thinkest?"
When I made answer, I began: "Alas!
How many pleasant thoughts, how much desire,
Conducted these unto the dolorous pass!"
Then unto them I turned me, and I spake,
And I began: "Thine agonies, Francesca,
Sad and compassionate to weeping make me.
But tell me, at the time of those sweet sighs,
By what and in what manner Love conceded,
That you should know your dubious desires?"
And she to me: "There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.
But, if to recognise the earliest root
Of love in us thou hast so great desire,
I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.
One day we reading were for our delight
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
Alone we were and without any fear.
Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
But one point only was it that o'ercame us.
When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,
Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
That day no farther did we read therein."
And all the while one spirit uttered this,
The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
I swooned away as if I had been dying,
And fell, even as a dead body falls.



I was absolutely determined not to talk about death in this post, and I have failed in the most spectacular fashion imaginable. This poem is about nothing but death. Also I've just realised this writing has taken the formatting of the poetry above and I can now empathise with Dante's descent into the underworld.

Formatting catastrophe averted. I have a copy of The Divine Comedy by a company called Arcturus Publishing, and it is absolutely splendiferous (I always use that word as if it is not a real word and experience a faint pang of disappointment whenever I realise it is). It includes the translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which is one of the best translations I can seem to find. Most are prose translations and I don't think this is the point of epic poetry. But suffice to say, Longfellow's translation is gasp-inducingly masterful. 'Master, who are those/People, whom the black air so castigates?' I love stuff like this. This is the ultimate in wonderful, caliginous decadence. Though I understand that most people would probably look at me askance and slowly move towards the cutlery drawer if I admitted such a fact.

Also my edition includes all the illustrations by Gustave Doré, who was an incredible artist who also illustrated things like Paradise Lost and The Raven. The scale of this poem is really reinforced by the magnificence of the attendant art. 

And now I come to the ignominious admission that, despite all this, I still haven't finished reading this bloody thing. It's the sort of thing that takes quite some industry, though this is not to say that it does not give commensurate rewards. I simply haven't found the time to read canto after canto. When I read stanzas such as:


And as the wings of starlings bear them on
In the cold season in large band and full,
So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

I find it very difficult to not re-read endlessly. This necessarily makes the whole endeavour quite time-consuming. There's something very hypnotic about iambic pentameter met by supreme skill in language. I'm going to read The Divine Comedy over the summer if it kills me. Which would be ironic.

On Death by Percy Bysshe Shelley

There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. -- Ecclesiastes.

The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way,
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,

Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.

The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,

Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.

Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?

Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?

Shelley is perhaps the most unconventional, experimental poet I enjoy reading. He often toys with rhythm and meter, not disregarding it exactly but not holding to it punctiliously either. I don't normally enjoy this in poets but the quality of the writing more than redeems it. 

I'm not sure what to say about this poem in particular. There is so much to digest that it would probably take me 3000 words to analyse it properly. First I suppose I could say that it perfectly captures the incomprehensibility of death. It is not something we have been afforded the mental equipment to empathise with. Nor, often, do we have the fortitude to accept death. We are 'unencompassed with nerves of steel'. This is exacerbated by the fact that we have no higher authority to whom we might refer on the matter - those who have experienced death are necessarily unavailable for congress. This is, naturally, where religion spotted a niche in the market. Post-death vaticinations seem to be their USP.

Poetry is usually about love or death. Both incomprehensible, both pointless to challenge or assay; these facts make the endeavour quite enjoyable. It's also interesting that both were experienced prematurely and disproportionately by the Romantic poets (of course one's own death is not bettered by repetition, but the Romantics seemed rather unfortunate with regards to early bereavement).

Quite enough inane gibbering from me. Termination of blog post imminent - avaunt!

Alone by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.


This poem is one of my favourite of Poe's. It to me summarises the possible invocations of poetry - it can be used for solace, lament, reasoning, befuddlement, assessing the past, assessing the future, and looking at one's own position in the world. It is the ultimate in solipsism. To Poe this poem must have been the purgation of, or at least the confinement of, something which haunted him. It also shows the power of language - when I read poetry like this I can't help but think that, although I know all the words used, I could never produce something of such expression and beauty. It is the power of language to somehow produce something greater than the sum of its parts that fascinates me. This is part of the basis of poetry - anyone could conceivably string some words together, it is their effortless selection and deployment that singles out the great.

As for the 'demon in my view', I must say I think this is death, though there may be reasons to doubt this. Poe seems to question everything around him, to draw the entire physical plane before him. This is typical of someone who does not understand how they fit into the world (as an aside, anyone who does understand how they fit into the world does not understand how they fit into the world). He summons images of permanence - rocks, mountains, the sun, and shows how they 'rolled' around him. Stage 4 existential crisis if it ever existed. The self-loathing and plaintive tone makes this such a Poe poem, and also such a Romantic poem. I could imagine something very similar being written by any other Romantic poet.

Poe actually wrote that 'out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been,' and this sentiment imbues the poem.

And before I depart, I love the movement from iambic tetrameter to trochaic tetrameter after 'The mystery which binds me still:', which somehow seems meaningful. Certainly it emphasises division and the feeling of loneliness.

Blog on, mate

I apologise for the faintly gruesome title. I also apologise in advance for the far more gruesome stream of seemingly random words which is about to pass your eyes like some sort of Perspex hearse filled with decomposing, filled bin bags.

I've made a blog. I'm also in the mood for self-evident statements. I'm not really sure what to say actually. I'm inclined to believe this is a very unfavourable augury for the future success of this blog. Certainly running out of ideas before the first post is not what I was hoping for. Second or third post maybe.

I've called it, after at least forty seconds of vaguely strenuous book-grabbing, 'Redeemed from Worms'. This is from a magnificent Byron poem (I feel the 'magnificent' may be superfluous in this sentence) called Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed From a Skull. I think a mere human can only imagine the vastness of a forehead which can comfortably house six verses of poetry. I wasn't going to quote the poem in full, but now I will do precisely that. Call the citation police if you want.


Start not -nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaffed like thee;
I died: let earth my bones resign:
Fill up -thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape
Than nurse the earthworm's slimy brood,
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of gods than reptile's food.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst; another race,
When thou and thine like me are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not -since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce?
Redeemed from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs to be of use.


The story behind this poem is that Byron's gardener had found a skull in Byron's garden, as one does. Goodness knows why, but Byron decided to have this turned into a drinking vessel. He writes, in a letter which I'm certain I've read in full but can only find in part on Wikipedia, 'There had been found by the gardener, in digging, a skull that had probably belonged to some jolly monk or friar of the Abbey, about the time it was demonasteried. Observing it to be of giant size, and in a perfect state of preservation, a strange fancy seized me of having it set and mounted as a drinking cup. I accordingly sent it to town, and it returned with a very high polish and of a mottled colour like tortoiseshell'. So it seems I was right about the 'giant size' of this fortuitously endowed bonce.

I'm rather a big fan of simple rhyme schemes, and this poem profits hugely from such a structure. Byron had a habit of using rhyme schemes that would frankly have driven me insane if I had to write in them, such as Don Juan's complex but not altogether incomprehensible abababcc. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, however, uses a far more convoluted ababbcbcc. I think I would be liable to engage in heated debates with hairdryers if subjected to such a writing pattern. Or indeed any number of household appliances; perhaps a stern disagreement with the toasted sandwich maker; a chagrined altercation with the dumpling steamer. I could go on (but mercifully won't). I can only speculate that the unfortunate lack of dumpling steamers in Byron's era is what led him to making cups out of skulls. 

I feel justified in saying that after reading 'Fill up -thou canst not injure me;/The worm hath fouler lips than thine,' I can sympathise with the female hot flush. This is why I love poetry - one can create perfect beauty in a line and then almost disregard it in a pit of nonchalance by moving on to the next verse. 

Iambic tetrameter (duh-dun,duh-dun,duh-dun,duh-dun) is an often-overlooked metrical pattern which is very easy to begin with but very difficult to master. It is hugely challenging to compress poetic thoughts into 8- or 9-syllable lines. Pentameter and hexameter are more difficult to begin with but pentameter is used in probably 90% of structured poems, so you have a lot of reference material. The only poet I can think of who used tetrameter a huge amount is Andrew Marvell. Perhaps Jonathan Swift too.

I've rambled quite successfully about that poem but the point about the line redeemed from worms is that it represents the plucking of something from the past and restoring it into worth. Poetry is unbelievably neglected nowadays (unsurprisingly really - there is a veritable dearth of talent). Whenever I think of the state of poetry today, I think of Arthur Miller's phrase 'a paucity of heroes' - it seems perfectly apt. This was not a major phrase of his, but its beauty did linger in my head. Anyway, this blog is in part for the drawing of attention to poetry. There are too many worms and too much wasting clay for poetry to flourish unaided. 

This blog is not just for poetry, though. If my almost terminal indolence allows it, I will try to write slightly informal, or at least short, essays on subjects which occur to me. This keeps happening to me and I siphon off one paragraph before being sucked into the black hole of the kitchen, doomed to eat peanut butter on toast for the foreseeable future. 

I think I did have a brief outline for this first blog post but I've completely misplaced it. Isn't 'misplace' an odd word? It makes the rather large assumption that each thing has a proper place in the universe, from which it must not stray. If this were the case then I would certainly be in the pub this very second.

This will not be a lifestyle blog. For one thing, the word 'lifestyle' is almost emetic to me. I have no plan when I get up in the morning and this is no source of lamentation on my part (though I'm sure the same cannot be said of my poor, suffering parents). The idea of an artificial construct of a life, some dry husk which one must fill, is in my mind absolute anathema. There are two possible outcomes to such a situation. One, that you meet or exceed your own expectations and experience brief euphoria followed by impossible despair at the ease with which your hopes and aspirations were mown down like reeds. The thought 'Well what now?' is an unbidden inevitability. The other outcome is of course that you fail to meet your expectations and feel even worse. The other reason I will not have a lifestyle blog is that it would certainly bore you into extinction. I will give you a brief taste of such a life, almost as an vaccination against its future relaying. Today I slept at 11am, woke up at 8pm, ate a Snickers bar, and slept from 10pm to 1am. This is the sort of irresistible gossip one might come to expect from my life. So no, I will blog about the interesting things in this world. If anything interesting happens to me, of course I will include it, but that is not the primary purpose of this blog.

I feel I should end here, indeed my laptop is beginning to freeze as if in protest to the idiocy with which I've approached this post. The fantastic thing about making a blog is that if you're terrible at writing anything remotely interesting, and would therefore have some cause to be embarrassed (the ability to be boring is a curse far worse than lycanthropy), then your blog simply will not be read. In other words, success is the only scenario in which your blog will get any attention. So it's a great way of being able to write in a rather equanimous way whilst also having some sense of seriousness.

I will certainly think of something I've forgotten as soon as I publish this, but such is the dynamic lifestyle of pressing plastic keys on a keyboard. Hope I haven't bored you to death. Or even to incapacity.