A Fabled Urn... The Grecian Charade

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

 

 

 

Supposedly this pillar of text holds Keats' model of poetry, how it should be and what it is, but I see a much fairer story therein. Each depiction on the urn takes a romantic stab at people and nature, how they are so at seeming odds, yet necessary to balance in a sort of dance of surival. In response the senses are assailed, each with its own sharp attunement.

 

The sounds assials hearing, from each mannerism of instrument the festival begins, yet the ritual is lost on you as you dance along, heedless of the end rhytmn that spells out fate. The sound is so serene and near divine as to touch your very soul, to stir it from its keeping with the heart of hearts hidden from even nature. This stirs out the primordial, love, as expressed by the loveliness of your neighboring love, who lies outside your grasp, tantalizing in the tempo of song. The crescendo rises with emotion, joy and happiness, boundless in its entry. Love is to be entertained even further, but not further may you sway forth, as you are exhausted and left wanting. Wordless, the scene parts, as the once familar surroundings become the focus over the rambling din.

 

All have come to the celebration, all assemble for the passage of nature, much like passion and in mass. Ever more, she persists, away from you and further still, just like all others from mountain and town. But what is this maiden of branch and thorn, what beauty does she hold, what truth is posssessed? The clue lies in the question, as true beauty cannot be reasoned, it simply is and will be. This is simple to know and all you need, but to recieve such understanding would sooner lead to one's own destruction than full comtemplative meaning.

 

In finally, the poem is indeed an opus of what a poem should be, truly beautiful. Achieveing this is quite natural when taken as such, natural. Though, the story the urn tells is not a fairy tale of epic proportions to which we all are familiar, it holds power in its assailment of what love can mean. More than a simple trinket it is taken in spirit over physicality, where it not only to be understood but take on unconditional meaning. Minus that, you have a simple empty pot that seems nice, but like all ceramics, crumbles soon after maker, leaving ruin where was once such life.

 

There are many ways one can view this poem, i chose this way to express there can be a story to something "generic," and it can hold subjective over objective perception. Thusly, the poem will likely discern in meaning differently to different people as all things do, but I still hope that even though these things may be analyzed, they are not quite definite not matter how literal they are, or even metaphorical. Although being non-literal can be an aid in this area duely.

Twinkle, Bright Star, Sparkle...

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.      

 

 

This poem is quite like the one I analyzed before On Autumn, it holds a cosmic spin to its descriptive beginning, and a reference to an avatar of love, a bit different in each. Here the avatar is quite physically described as versus the more metaphorical representation in the sky as priorly discussed. This lends it a certain air that is quite visible, even those without some kind of lover like that Keats knew can visualize the sweet figure nearby as they rest. While I'm not a romantic, and do in fact prefer the other lover image, I can relate my adoration for this poem in its integral star, versus stars, image. This star is a bit ambiguous as far as what it exactly represents in itself, but I like to think of it as Keats' non-loneliness, his coupling, which was inevitably at a standstill where it would bring him further into self succlusion, at least physically. With this beign so, that symbol remains distant until the image shifts to the moment being right beside him, a lover's form at rest. Here, he can live that impossible event, his marriage, in media res, if only for a brief while. However, even though the possibility is quite distant, the description that the love is the only thing keeping him alive is both accurate and quite paradoxical in that the love is not really furfilled. This draws another parallel to the prior poem in its open and deadly end, a type of end I particularly am quite fond and enjoy, even using it myself. It adds a certain alluring element of the inevitable, yet unpredictable future, and thusly creates an atmosphere of intrigue so that one wants to know what the next moment holds, to be sure that is not simply the end. This is perhaps the greatest  challenge of Keats in his fianl year as he had to face death head on, without comfort of love beyond mere writing. But sometimes writing can unleash the soul, however it often boxes it into candied emotions, quick to be resorbed by the masses. I'm not sure what security Keats had in mind for when his body was not longer able, but I think that whatever it might have been, Franny would certainly been there.

Autumn? Or something.... more?

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                                           

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                           

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

 

 

I think I find this Keats poem quite the spectacle with its inherent lack of a love interest, and more involved romantic nature. In that absence, there is still Keats' self inclusive image and the comparative scene he holds it against. The first stanza is quite recurring in Keats' poems, as it usually, as it does here, describe some Romantic scene laced with the purpose to go forward beyond marveling the wonder of nature. The interesting part of this particular stanza is its distinct intial spring-like feel with the vibrance and life in everything described, however as the last line says its time to move on not begin. This led me to consider the season to be the summer of spring, where everything has matured and is picturesque, yet not quite in the stage of preparation and dormancy. Amidst this particularly peculiar seasoning, lies the second stanza, the one where the figure of Keats is present. The figure is projected from Keats, which does give it an address feel even though the figure could very well be himself. I consider the figure to be Keats for the emotion intertwined with it, a sense of solitude and appreciation in the sense of observation. The wonderful romantic world, of which Keats swooned philosophically,  past over him in its many vibrant senses, from the very tangible to the more perceived. However, even as that is all fine, dandy, and time lapsing, it still brings as much joy as watching a plant change, slowly and indefinitely. While this is indeed the world to lose oneself, especially if out of a more human sense of real, the time and setting mix with the underlying solitude to forbode an inevitable and rather disheartening change. Since it is an awkward season as priorly mentioned, it is seemly to miss certain things that would be normal in a more cut and dry time. Instead, the wind of change, the coming of autumn upon the soft caressing breeze, carries its own tune and therefore its own value. But as the time would have it, the denizens the figure observed in the chaotic upheaval of season, now sense too the forthcoming, and move to intercept their instinctual response. And so as the wind moves on, so does the season and its participants, leaving the figure with but a flicker of what was right before their eyes. While very open in this sense, applying to Keats seems to fill out a time where he pondered an ideal imagined scene, that too was plagued by his real-time lonesome state, something he despised. He'd much rather be in company than anything else, so a skitter in the leaves won't make such good company. This is the time that he perhaps thought that he should seek a more hospitable place before he too was lost in the wind, adrift his lonely floatsome amidst a decaying sea of blinding wonder.



Nothingness (Entropy?)

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high grav'd books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to Nothingness do sink.

 



 

Poe might have imparted some personal experience in which I personally as a person could identify with that person he wrote so elegantly about, Keats here brings an ideal I find rather interesting and worth investigation, if for entropic reasons. While this does cross into the forbidden area of Romance apparently, I take the love more in the ideal sense than the highly probably literal sense Keats uses by refering to someone he looks at with love (I extend it as a metaphor to ride beyond simple romance in this case).

 

 

It begins in a seeming state of regret towards things he may not do, as if dying or soon to gone, he or the object he adorns. It would appear he directly references the many ideas he will be unable to explore as they melt alongside his form, a notion particularly horrifying to he and one I find to be quite disturbingly true when thought about.This failing vision imparts a highhorse, later seeming to be fame (presumably Keats and/or ego), from which the night imparts a loving face in the stars (romantic in itself I suppose). From here on it describes the typical concealed commonality that I prefer to take metaphorically: He knows that he will lose that lover's face (apparently the most endearing quality, rather dumb if you ask me) and is remorse that he will be unable to trace that lover with his hand (presumably in a sensual manor) before he returns to the pity of the lost face and its "magic." I prefer to think of it pieced as him looking wistfully at the sky with continued remorse and love lost (not necessarily a lover). This spans that he can no longer feel the magic it brings and that its power in merely seeing it is very alluring even during this presumed fall of some sort. Then of course that pose must end, and once again very alone like, much like "Alone," the narrator must face their lonesomeness, only here it goes on to say that they previously mention aspect of love, and notoreity, are inevitable also doomed to become nothing as he appears to be doing as well by the intial remorse. It could simply be a final farewell as he drifts into the abyss away from that he dears most (clearly detachment has not occurred i.e. very not good dying health if that is what is occurring), but it could also more profoundly refer further to say that even the great seemingly immortal aspects of Love and Fame, are but to eventually become nothing, a rather depressing footnote to his plight.

 

Sadly as I said before I cannot relate personally, however this light-is-fading swoon is something I have observed and thought about in amusement of it. Much like my own endings, this ends with the notion that in continuation there is eternity and futility, common aspects to see when thinking of one's own demise, or even death itself. However, even I do not wish to dwell long in such despair and say that if such a horror were to occur it would be of perspective, and over a long period we cannot yet fully comprehend as the living, and only with possiblity as the long and gone like so many before us.

Alone [with Him]

Edgar Allan Poe's "Alone" is perhaps the most convoluted poem I have yet encountered, and yet still it the most meaningful as well. The diction is undoubtedly quite dense as it twists to fit a rather strict meter while describing great founts about the narrator and his curious predicament. I shall share an imparted meaning, then reflect, as what I believe it to be, could very well be a quite different demon all together.

 

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.  

 

Overall, it seems to describe that the narrator is quite different from his peers, going as far to say that it has not only been this way for quite some time, but that which others had, he drew into action from an alternative, perhaps intraflectively. This is particularly achieved by describing emotion, then while identifying the difference of his experience with them versus others, or even at all, he turns towards an ugly spiral of turbulence reminiscent of his childhood life. Alone he was in his plight, and in that loneliness all else came to pass, from the great wonders of the natural world: the founts of pain and pleasure, the struggles high as the mountain stained with effort (blood), the powerful center and source of light/life, and finally the tumultous heavens of the heart. In this lone sanctum was the highest moment achieved after such strain to arrive, and what is there to face upon the sea of tears, but you and you alone, quite different from the other side. Perhaps even a bit a bit as evil as it may have seem just to arrive at such a revelation, or maybe just another mirror to remind you of that endless existence inside yourself, taunting you with futility and eventually doom by you inevitably.

 

Reflectively, I see a lost child that stand apart from what could be considered normal, and there sees through a self journey in the bowels of that conflict. While the circumstances that occur are not clear as to what they are, they do reveal their grandeur in nature, as well as their tumultuous passing. Inevitably this returns the child to himself pass each great and dark wind that he encounters furvorously, and reveals his own true nature, nutured by his lone life and stark upheaval of it. This confrontation is not played out, however it is safe to assume two very possible outcomes from the end point, both quick and intraspective. He can embrace this lonesome life as it is, empowering the demon and embracing the winds as a cape of travels in the sky-bound city as he ventures into the unknown darkness he exudes. Or perhaps he can reject it, which in turn may lead to his seeking an end to such burden, or simply abandonment of it, resolving his lonsomeness all the same, but only in bitter existence for the sake of hiding it all away. Personally I felt as though I could be that child should the poem be me, although it clearly is not, and so I feel that this poem is quite effective at not only stirring your mind, but peeking at your own dwelling spirit as well. Hopefully the mirror seen for real does not reflect that of the unfortunate, or bear something rather unbearable even in spirit.

The Tales of Olde and The Tails of New

I'm going to go straight to the point, and by that I mean imparting meaning on the rather lamely poetic title and hopefully entertainingly. I want to compare what was old and what is new, but not in a way that first seems apparently, but really does make sense. For the tales of old, I meant those which we once knew before, in youth, as versus ancient or classical (More of Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales than The Canterbury Tales or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner). The "tails" (poetics on Tales for humor: reference to regenerable, hence new, tails, like those of certain species) of new are the contemprary material, which can comprise anything from the Inheritance Cycle to The Dragon Heir. Glancing these two are quite similar (and yes I will be using dragon tales to demonstrate a slightly broader topic of fairy tales as I have more experience in dragon ones), but I am trying to discern the two to appear different by their times, timing of our own age more than the year of publication (some overlap).

When we first start out, as toddlers (basically infants), we are often told of the world in a mystical tone via stories, which are often retold tales from ages past (at least partly). Many if not all know something of Red Riding Hood, Repunzel, Cinderella, several "lesser" known tales (Princess and the Frog, Jack and the Bean Stalk, etc.), and very especially Dragons, probably from the mythological fasination of something great yet inhuman. These clearly offered us exposure to imagination and wonderment, in a world that is great, if not as magically as percieved elsewhere. It is also quite apparent that without this, culture and innovation would be far less important if they were even to somehow exist in such absence. In example, most tribal cultures still thrive by the passing on over the next generations life, even as the world changes deeply around them, and most religions, major ones, have stood the test of time by the tales of what once passed and what will be, all seen by viewing things as they are via stories.

Then what is the point of separating the tales we now know and have avilable to us? For me at least, there is a stark contrast in the feel and takeaway each possesses, especailly with age. When we "grow-up," for some reason we appear to shrink and/or dissipate the very lively things of imagination that caused us to get to that point. This is reflected in materials today as some steer away from what could, to what really is, an irksome notion that reality is some plane representative of a box and a withering one at that. Inheritance and The Dragon Heir were books I enjoyed very much with their use of fantasy to a great moral length, one I could learn from in the end (in the books together this was self sacrifice). However, they had a slightly lesser effect (in this case only slight), than did things like Dragon Rider and The Daughters of Petabyee: Maelstrom, despite having a more "mature" and "modern" take on something very similar. These books for the youth somehow held more value, especially in my own youth, than even things I enjoyed just as immensely and intensively (after all they were mmore my "level"). I wish I could state it more clearly, but this correlation is all that I can really muster, that in youth there are the fairies, and later they recurr, but strangely enough are so different. What really happened to these symbols and characters of olde escapes even me, perhaps our reality and its change to the almost exclsuively material is blame. However somehow I feel this is just a visible change of something much deeper, and more innate than something gained by the way of generations. Hopefully it is a path to find a brighter light, rather than inevitable irreversible corruption, and most certainly not a loss by natural, or perhaps artificial, destruction.

Ham VS Mac: The Dark Bloody Meats of The Speare {BurgerMeister}

I'm sure it has been said more than once before, including by me, that Shakespeare has a knack for rather strange character involvement that ends up in quite the dramatic "blood everywhere." Two very similar embodiments of this are very well known and cherished throughout the world, the supposedly deranged vindicator known as Hamlet and the prophetic slaying king Macbeth.

Hamlet is my more well known examined subject, as he is the worse of the two, in ways, as well as being my more favorite anyway. As I have said before, Hamlet is pentultimate evil in his path of vengeance for his father towards Claudius, leaving few to spare. His massive delay in the plot to plot Claudius' death causes a dreadful decay towards an inevitable bottom of the down spiral. He even drives Ophelia to her own madness, while having taken Polonius by supposing him Claudius and finally deciding to act, albeit a bit late and rashly so. After such already potent killing directly and not, Hamlet's quest still isn't sated, and he is left to await a doom for not only his goal, but his family as well. In the end, all but Horatio, who manages to be the storyteller of such a fate as per due, and Fortenbra, who usurps the throne immediately after the court has been turned to a cadaver field, are dead. So, we are left knowing that Hamlet's efforts effectively did no good aside possible vengeance, and instead they also wrought the death of not one, like even Claudius' action, but all (almost).

Macbeth has a slightly different story with his claim to fame by witchery's prophetic vision, proving he was unstoppable but by seeming impossible means. So, Macbeth has his way in arrogance, leading to his own rapid downfall as quick as he came, by the hand of Duncan, the wombless born, and his contingent of the using-forest-parts-as-cover-and-or-camoflage-technique. There is much more to the story, but here is more so where my point lies then others: the dark.

I have stated both sides are dark, but to tie them together I will need a pivot, and what better joint than in the other characters, particularly the women. In both cases women are seemingly important role caster, whether Lady Macbeth or Gertude/Ophelia, while also subsequently finding themselves encased in unsavory circumstances. These occurrances, usually by visage or madness (Gertrude- Hamlet's "betrayal" ; Ophelia's Madness ; Lady Macbeth and the Blood), are effects garnered by the main character and their actions, most towards their goals, versus directly. Ultimately this is progressed to further death, including the main character instigator, effectively thwarting any meaning they would have been worth alive. Really all I can see being gleaned from these stories under such a dim light, is that you should not be like them, and there are interesting consequences to your psyche beyond what can even be imagined beforehand. I suppose this makes sense for the British, as in my experience, the stories usually have some sort of quality in their characters that is deplorable, one that the people would admonish and see reason in. For whatever reason, perhaps because of how unversed I am in natural British, the meaning meant was too dark and bloody to see.