"The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm", Wallace Stevens.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
WHEN Newton saw an apple fall, he found
In that slight startle from his contemplation--
'T is said (for I 'll not answer above ground
For any sage's creed or calculation)--
A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round
In a most natural whirl, called 'gravitation;'
And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,
Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple.
~Lord Byron
"One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can'ts seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out
of their way to say that it is like something else.
What foes it mean when we are told
That the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus
hinder longevity,
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming
in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on
the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy there are
a great many things,
But i don't imagine that among then there is a wolf with purple and gold
cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually
like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and
big white teeth and did he say Woof woof?
Frankly I think it very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the
very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts
about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to
invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to
people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed
up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets, from Homer
to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket after a
winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of snow and
I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical blanket material and
we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly,
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile. "
~Ogden Nash
VOICE OF THE VOICELESS
I am the Voice of the Voiceless
Through me the dumb shall speak
'Til the world's deaf ear be made to hear
The wrongs of the wordless weak.
Oh shame on the mothers of mortals
Who do not stoop to teach
The sorrow that lies in dear dumb eyes
The sorrow that has no speech.
From street, from cage, from kennel
From stable and from zoo
The wail of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
Of the mighty against the frail.
But I am my brother's keeper
And I shall fight their fight
And speak the word for beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox-
in friendship,
prad
Front Street -A Book of Poems by -William Johnstone Britton-Memphis Tennesse-1948..---TITLED---ONE MOMENT PLEASE------------------------When out of all your contemporaries,
You're one of the few that are here,
And a feelin aklin to sadness,
Tinged with a little fear,
Comes creeping over your senses,
Like the chill of the first winter day,
And you know in your heart that you're,
homeword bound,
Back to that home of clay,
Pray that in that last moment,
Your one thought may be then,
Not of a prayer for your own little soul,
But for the souls of all other men.--SEPTEMBER 1948..
NOT IDEAS ABOUT THE THING BUT THE THING ITSELF
Wallace Stevens
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At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.
The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.
It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.
That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,
Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.
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The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Wallace Stevens
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Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
To ensure your marriage is filled,
with love in the loving cup,
whenever you're wrong,
admit it,
whenever you're right,
shut up.
Also by Ogden Nash 'The Loving Cup'.
I was asked to read this at a wedding a few months ago, and when I finished, I heard one rather confused old dear a few rows back turn to her neighbour and say,'Is that it? I thought the service was a bit longer!'
The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe
American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) based the following poem on a fable which was told in India many years ago.
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
?God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!?
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, ?Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ?tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!?
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
?I see,? quoth he, ?the Elephant
Is very like a snake!?
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
?What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,? quoth he;
? ?Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!?
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: ?E?en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!?
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
?I see,? quoth he, ?the Elephant
Is very like a rope!?
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
in friendship,
prad
Originally posted by pradtf
The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe
American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) based the following poem on a fable which was told in India many years ago.
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind
...[text shortened]... other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
in friendship,
prad
Great !!