A Smattering of Poems

8/8/2019 A Smattering of Poems

1/17

A

Smatteringof Poems

English & American

Literature Courses

Dr. Lou Rosenberg


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CONTENTSIntroduction ....................................................................................................................................... 2

William Shakespeare ......................................................................................................................... 3

SONNET 18 .................................................................................................................................... 3

SONNET 29 .................................................................................................................................... 4

SONNET 71..................................................................................................................................... 5

SONNET 116 ................................................................................................................................... 6

SONNET 130 .................................................................................................................................. 7

John Donne ........................................................................................................................................ 8

Holy Sonnet 10 ............................................................................................................................... 8

Robert Browning ................................................................................................................................ 9

My Last Duchess ............................................................................................................................ 9

Porphyria's Lover .......................................................................................................................... 11

Robert Frost ..................................................................................................................................... 13

The Road Not Taken .................................................................................................................... 13

Mending Wall ............................................................................................................................... 14

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening .................................................................................... 16


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INTRODUCTIONThe best way to read poetry is towell, just read it! Even if you dont understand what youre

reading at first, the more times you actually engage in the poem, enlightenment should

eventually strike.

I strongly suggest that you read the poems and gain as much insight as you can before

consulting secondary and reference sources. While tempting, working backwards would

severely limit your ability to synthesize the poem for use in an assignment. Also, it cannot be

overstated how important it is to bring your questions to your lectures.


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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SONNET 18Shall I compare thee to a summers day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling1 buds of May,

And summers lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or natures changing course untrimmd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderst in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest2:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

1 Young2 grafting metaphor. Grafting is a technique used to join parts from two plants with cords so that theygrow as one. Thus the beloved becomes immortal, grafted to time with the poets cords (his eternallines).

NOTES

All but two of Shakespeares

sonnets were first published in

1609entitled SHAKE-SPEARES

SONNETS.:Never before

imprinted. (Sonnets 138 and 144

had previously been published in

a 1599 anthology entitled The

Passionate Pilgrim.). The

publisher, Thomas Thorpe,

entered the work into the

Stationers Register on May 20,

1609; however, whether or not

Shakespeare approved of the

publication is unknown.


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SONNET 29When, in disgrace

1with fortune and mens eyes,

I all alone beweep

2

my outcast stateAnd trouble deaf heaven with my bootless3 cries

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him4, like him with friends possessd,

Desiring this mans art and that mans scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heavens gate;

For thy sweet love rememberd such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

1 out of favor.2 weep over (my outcast state) The poets outcast state is possibly an allusion to his lack of work as anactor due to the closing of the theatres in 1592 (during an outbreak of plague). It also could be a referenceto the attack on Shakespeare at the hands of Robert Greene.3 unheard4 other, perhaps more attractive, men


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SONNET 71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell1

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O, if, I say, you look upon this verse

When I perhaps compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.

But let your love even with my life decay,

Lest the wise world should look into your moan

And mock you with me after I am gone.

1 At funerals during the Renaissance, one could pay to have the passing-bell rung as many times as thedeceased was alive, as a tribute to his or her life.


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SONNET 116Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:1

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark2

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star3 to every wandering bark,4

Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken.5

Loves not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickles compass come:6

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

1 i.e., deviates (bends) to alter its course (remove) as with departure.2 i.e., a lighthouse3 North star4 ship5 Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can be measured.6 i.e., physical beauty falls within the range (compass) of Times curved blade. Note the comparison ofTime to the Grim Reaper, the scythe-wielding personification of death.


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SONNET 130My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damaskd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.


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JOHNDONNE

Holy Sonnet 10Death be not proud, though some have calld theeMighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou thinkst, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,

Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,

And better then thy stroake; why swellst thou then;

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

NOTES

John Donne (1572-1631) was a

English poet, preacher and a

major representative of the

metaphysical poets of the peri

This sonnet is taken from his

collection titledHoly Sonnets

Divine Sonnets)


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ROBERTBROWNING

My Last DuchessFerrara1

Thats my last duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Fr Pandolfs2

hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Willt please you sit and look at her? I said

Fr Pandolf by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, twas not

Her husbands presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess cheek: perhaps

Fr Pandolf chanced to say Her mantle laps

Over my ladys wrist too much, or Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat: such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart how shall I say? too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whateer

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, twas all one! My favor at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

1 The place is the ducal palace in the Italian city-state of Ferrara; the time is the Renaissance.2 Invented painter of the portrait of the last duchess

NOTES

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

was a master of dramatic poetr

especially the dramatic

monologue.


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Or blush, at least. She thanked men good! but thanked

Somehow I know not how as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybodys gift. Whod stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech which I have not to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and make excuse,

Een then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Wheneer I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Willt please you rise? Well meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your masters known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughters self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay well go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!


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Porphyria's LoverThe rain set early in tonight,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare,

And all her yellow hair displaced,

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me she

Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,

To set its struggling passion free

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me forever.

But passion sometimes would prevail,

Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale

For love of her, and all in vain:

So, she was come through wind and rain.

Be sure I looked up at her eyes

Happy and proud; at last l knew

Porphyria worshiped me: surprise

Made my heart swell, and still it grew

While l debated what to do.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair


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In one long yellow string l wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

l am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

l warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And l untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

l propped her head up as before,

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still:

The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,That all it scorned at once is fled,

And l, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria's love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said aword!

N.B.Porphyria is an incurable blood disease that disables and kills thousands every year. Its

discovery dates back to the mid-1700s, well before Browning wrote Porphyria's Lover. It is

often referred to as mental illness or the Royal Disease, which, given Porphyria's tidy golden

hair, means Porphyria could have been royalty inasmuch as that description would not likely be

associated with Victorian lower class. Symptoms of Porphyria's disease are repeatedly described

within the poem by Browning, e.g. blood loss (gone so pale), muscle weakness (too weak to

set her passion free) and light sensitivity which explains why she arrived at night (rain set in

early tonight) and so on. Victims of Porphyria's disease suffer a horrible death.


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ROBERT FROST

The Road Not TakenTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

NOTES

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was a

American poet who won the

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1937

He is most famous for his

depictions of rural New Englan

Frost was a farmer with a typica

New England work ethic of har

work. Therefore, he wrote mos

of his poetry at night.


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Mending WallSomething there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it

And spills the upper boulder in the sun,

And make gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there,

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there,


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Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."


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Stopping By Woods on a Snowy EveningWhose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

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A Smattering of Poems