Poetry Corner: The Line-Gang

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Here come the line-gang pioneering by,
They throw a forest down less cut than broken.
They plant dead trees for living, and the dead
They string together with a living thread.
They string an instrument against the sky
Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken
Will run as hushed as when they were a thought.
But in no hush they string it: they go past
With shouts afar to pull the cable taut,
To hold it hard until they make it fast,
To ease away- they have it. With a laugh,
An oath of towns that set the wild at naught,
They bring the telephone and telegraph.
- Robert Frost

I'm not sure exactly why this poem appealed to me - it isn't on the most poetic of subjects, and I've never seen a line-gang. For some reason though, the rhythm of the words and the images were very beautiful and clever to me. I thought the line "They plant dead trees for a living, and the dead/They string together with a living thread" was brilliant.

This is probably my last poetry corner for Robert Frost, as I have gotten through the poems I have by him on my Kindle. I am trying to decide what my next daily poetry book should be - I'm torn between Elizabeth Barret Browning, e.e. cummings, and Emily Dickinson. Any suggestions on good poets to read?

Poety Corner: Bond and Free

It's been a while since I've done one of these!

(Photo Credit)

Bond and Free


Love has earth to which she clings


With hills and circling arms about --


Wall within wall to shut fear out.


But Thought has need of no such things,


For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.





On snow and sand and turf, I see


Where Love has left a printed trace


With straining in the world's embrace.


And such is Love and glad to be.


But Thought has shaken his ankles free.





Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom


And sits in Sirius' disc all night,


Till day makes him retrace his flight,


With smell of burning on every plume,


Back past the sun to an earthly room.





His gains in heaven are what they are.


Yet some say Love by being thrall


And simply staying possesses all


In several beaty that Thought fares far


To find fused in another star.


- Robert Frost





I love the contrast between Love and Thought - I think often I have been one to want my freedom and to "cleave the interstellar gloom" but I think I'm happier now that I have "earth to which she clings."

Poetry Corner: My November Guest

My November Guest
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
- Robert Frost

Even though these images are gray and loved by Frost's personification of Sorrow, I think they illustrate that there is still beauty even though it is muted and cold.

Poetry Corner: After Apple-Picking

Just read this one and, as it was more alluring than going through slides for my physiology lab, I decided I needed to post it immediately.
After Apple-Picking
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
-Robert Frost

I loved the rhythm of this poem. Read it aloud, the way the words fall are beautiful. I also loved the sensory detail. I could feel all those sensations: the lingering ache in the arch of the foot, even though the pressure of the ladder is gone, the scent of apples, the coldness as you skim the ice off the water outside (we had horses and sheep, so breaking the ice was a common occurrence in winter), and more than anything, being ready to drop into sleep, only to dream more of what you have been doing all day. Of course, I dreamed about o chem last night.

Poetry corner: October

I read one poem a day, because reading full on books of poetry at one time overwhelm me but I love poetry in small doses. I thought this morning's poem fit in well with today -

October
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from the trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost -
For the grapes' sake along the wall.
- Robert Frost

I love how he asks the morning to be more slow - that we will allow our hearts to be beguiled. October is my favorite month because I love the crisp mornings and the beautiful leaves. Thanks, Robert.