Richibi’s Weblog

Just another WordPress.com weblog

Category: a poem to ponder

June 26, 2012

Xl. And therefore if to love can be desert – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

Xl. And therefore if to love can be desert…

And therefore if to love can be desert,
I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale
As these you see, and trembling knees that fail
To bear the burden of a heavy heart, –
This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
To pipe now ‘gainst the valley nightingale
A melancholy music, — why advert
To these things? O Beloved, it is plain
I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!
And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
From that same love this vindicating grace
To live on still in love, and yet in vain, –
To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

____________________

“desert” here, as in “just deserts”, to get what one
deserves, and not incidentally “Just Desserts”, the
sweets emporia, is an example of the affectations of
Romantic poetry that used to annoy me and turn me
away, so that I quickly lost my curiosity as to its
proponents, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Rimbaud, Verlaine,
Baudelaire, were all too ornate, and abstruse, obscure,
for me to see anything but artifice and decoration,
when I required clarity and direction as a young pup

here and there an idea struck a chord that would not
not reverberate, about Truth and Beauty for instance,
or “They also serve who only stand and wait“, and of
course the plangent “How do I love thee? Let me
count the ways“, which had none of these infringing
pretensions

it took me a while to understand that this was the idiom
of another age, that poetry could transcend its heritage
and become relevant

urgent

vital

Aornus, I ask you, is a mountain in, of all places, India,
which Alexander purportedly conquered way before
our time

to “advert/To” is to refer to

despite these irritations, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
remains unexpectedly direct and even still poignant
in her self-disparagement, her self-abnegation, even
after eleven poems, perhaps because she touches,
beyond the idiosyncracies of self-conscious style,
masochistic maybe even neurosis, an underlying
true chord of love in all its quivering manifestations,
one of our major ever existential concerns

Richard

Leave a comment
June 3, 2012

X. Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

X. Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful…

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; and equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee … mark! … I love thee—in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

___________________

we are witness to the “transfigur[ation]“ that occurs at
the conferment of love, the sacred trust one receives of
infinite empathy for another, others, in order to glimpse
maybe something of the mystical dimensions of our
universe, the place within it of miracles, should one
chance to go there

and it is, well, transformational, a quantum leap of the
very soul

note structurally the rush of emotion that blurs a
usually dominant rhyme, the stop for breath in the
very middle of a verse instead of its usual place at
the end of the line, to suggest the lost parameters,
the breached social norms, of her emotion

note the urgency of her sentiment – “I love thee …
mark! … I love thee” – despite being “the lowest”,
and being unworthy under normal conditions of
even being heard

yet she is aware, cognizant, that this grace she
has received changes the world – “How that great
work of Love enhances Nature’s.” – her “new rays”
burn ever bright, a constant flame keeping vigil at
her lover’s altar, and sheds light thereby, hope and,
it appears, undying inspiration, on all of us

wow, man

note also, incidentally, how, this time, there is not
a word about him, even a descriptive trait, except
as a necessary, though maybe incidental, catalyst,
a primal engine

we’ll see

Richard

Leave a comment
June 1, 2012

lX. Can it be right to give what I can give? – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

lX. Can it be right to give what I can give?…

Can it be right to give what I can give?
To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
Re-sighing on my lips renunciative
Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live
For all thy adjurations? O my fears,
That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,
So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,
That givers of such gifts as mine are, must
Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!
I will not soil thy purple with my dust,
Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,
Nor give thee any love — which were unjust.
Belovèd, I love only thee! let it pass.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

________________________

though it might seem unworthy, this is my condition,
she says, I have only my misery to offer, and my
intemperate, ineradicable, love, my very destiny,
should it be of any consequence, best were for you,
therefore, to move on

at which her abnegation brought me to a shiver, and,
marvelously, to, in my very body, compassion

there is something awesome, even sacred, in this
unbound sincerity

Richard

Leave a comment
May 31, 2012

Vlll. What can I give thee back, O liberal – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

Vlll. What can I give thee back, O liberal…

What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the wall
For such as I to take or leave withal,
In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
Ungrateful, that for these most mainfold
High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
Not so; not cold, — but very poor instead.
Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run
The colours from my life, and left so dead
And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
To give the same as pillow to thy head.
Go farther! let it serve to trample on.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

______________________

at this point I have to say, get a hold of yourself, girlfriend,
there is some worth in you even if you are wretched, look
at just your poetry, which from this pespective shines
radiant light upon your dependent lover, who would not
live so bright were you not his sponsor in the cultural
imagination, your moon has made his sunshine infinitely
more lustrous

but that is from this perspective, a love so subservient is
no longer an appropriate model in a world where women
are taking their rightful place, even still

but perhaps this is, pertinently, an aspect of love, male
or female, this obliterating surrender

Richard

Leave a comment
May 30, 2012

Vll. The face of all the world is changed, I think – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

Vll. The face of all the world is changed, I think…

The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shall be, there or here;
And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear
Because thy name moves right in what they say.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

______________________

there are only two statements here, “The face of all the world
is changed” and “The cup of dole / God gave for baptism, I am
fain to drink”, in either case et cetera

the metre is iambic pentameter, the beat is of course
Shakespeare’s, famous for his own immortal sonnets, and
probably an inspiration for Barrett Browning, who uses as
well his archaic, even in the nineteenth century then, “thou”,
“thee”, “thine”

think about it

the metre is concealed by the flow of the sentence, which
can only be effectively blurred by inordinate, dare I say,
blinding, passion, which Elizabeth has of course in spades,
declaring utimately with these historic sonnets the inner
workings of love for the very ages

but to our consternation, and utmost admiration, this flow
of unfettered sentiment rhymes, and even technically
deserves to be considered a poem, an even masterpiece

Richard

Leave a comment
May 25, 2012

Vl. Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

Vl. Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand…

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forebore—
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_____________________

are you ready for Miss Thing, you have left an indelible
impression upon my soul, she says, inscribed in my very
anatomy, which even the Great Discerner will descry at
the very Day of Reckoning

though today’s girls would take offence at such overt
subservience, I think Elizabeth‘s abnegation speaks
to the ineradicable longing for surrender, physical,
emotional, spiritual, latent ever in all of us, men as
well as women


Richard

Leave a comment
May 19, 2012

V. I lift my heavy heart up solemnly – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

V. I lift my heavy heart up solemnly…

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
 Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,
O my Belovèd, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

___________________

Elizabeth has realized that Robert might stay, but,
she says, should you, this is all I have to offer, “ashes
at thy feet… a great heap of grief”, where, however,
“wild sparkles dimly burn / Through the ashen greyness”

she is not, she insists, not alive, she is even “scorch[ing]“,
she confirms, beneath the apparent drudge, enough to set
Robert on dire fire should he not “tread them out”, they
would consume even him, “those laurels on thine head, /
O my Belovèd, will not shield thee” otherwise

be off, she warns, “Stand farther off then! go.”, an admonition
she must herself also heed, she surely intuits, should she be
called upon to indeed catch incendiary flame

“But if instead / Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow/
The grey dust up…”

there is an evolution here in the procees of love which
will surely bear investigation as the sonnets unfold, an
emotional unfurling, I would think, of the stages of
recognized and appreciated devotion, Robert, as it
turned out, stuck around, a love story brought to
inspirational fruition for the very ages

Richard

Leave a comment
May 12, 2012

lV. Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

lV. Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor…

Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
The dancers will break footing, from the care
Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor
For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear
To let thy music drop here unaware
In folds of golden fulness at my door?
Look up and see the casement broken in,
The bats and owlets builders in the roof!
My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.
Hush, call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation! there’s a voice within
That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

___________________

you get called out to all the best parties, she says,
where all the guests hang on to your every word,
whose “pregnant lips” of course spew only poetry

yet this is where you come to roost – note how
“latch” suggests a humble cottage here – “The
bats and owlets builders in the roof!” don’t help
of course either

nor are you aware, she continues, of the “golden
fulness”, the bristling imagination, with which you
array my world so effortlessly, me, but a strident
“cricket” to your melodious “mandolin” – wonderful

I don’t even want to think about it, she insists,
“Hush”

in other words, I say “potato”, and “thou must”,
existentially, it appears, say “potahto”, and that’ll be
the end of that

but of course I’m right, I hear her subliminally saying,
it’s “potato”, but fate, cruel, cruel fate, has decreed
my abject and irrevocable subservience, to which I
must and will forthwith cede, “alone”, she decries
ever so forlornly, utterly, even ontologically, which
is to say, in her very essence, “aloof”

it is interesting to consider that of the two Brownings
the most famous must remain Elizabeth if only for
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”, which
every lover has declared to his love ever since, every
inamorata to hers

who will undoubtedly continue also to do so forever

Robert will be remembered of the two however as
finally, I think, the more significant poet

Richard

Leave a comment
May 21, 2011

On Being Eighty

if being eighty is a condition for writing so beautiful a poem,
how can that age be anything but precious, being eighty
must be a blessing only someone not eighty then can know,
never a “shadow”, never ever a “cobweb” 
 
a friend responded to my own poem with something of hers,
to which I could not but cede before its greater, its more
poignant, its more probing, its more pressing, beauty 
 
 
with applause
 
Richard  
 
                  _____________________
 
 
On Being Eighty
 

There’s been a subtle change, a feeling of absence,
I am an echo in the empty space 
Where once I stood among the crowd.
I am a shadow of the past
That haunts the edges of the world

I am the shadow that haunts my children
I am the shadow that clings like cobweb 
Entangling them with guilt. 
 
 
                                   a friend

 

 
 
          _______________________
 
 
Leave a comment
May 13, 2011

love and hope

a poem by me  
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          richibi 

                           __________________
 

love and hope

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             why do we ever only hear of people falling hopelessly in love
and never hopefully
 
why do we fall in love instead of rising to it 
 
why don’t we have verbs of elevation,
like lift, fly, transcend
 
when love is often like very wings 
 
shouldn’t adverbs be more encouraging,
shouldn’t they inspire rather than drop like lead,
shouldn’t they water love like the garden of infinite possibilities 
one in love imagines and irrepressibly invents  
rather than succumb to fear of despair, and the dark side 
 
I’ve wondered
 
since without love there can after all be no heaven
 
and yet we fall   
 
 
                                                   richibi   

                      

                       

              ______________________________

Leave a comment