Write Like a Modernist

In the assignment, you will demonstrate your understanding of the tenets of modernist literature by rewriting a Romantic poem in a way that incorporates typically modernist qualities in terms of language, style, literary elements, and themes. The assignment is broken down into four parts. What is in RED is an example.

Part 1: Choose a Romantic Poem

Romantic literature champions the beauty of the world and the inherent goodness of human beings, and Romantic verse is highly structured and deeply traditional. Modernism frequently defines itself as a reaction against and a rejection of romanticism. Modernist poetsviewed Romantic poetry as a remnant of the nineteenth century. Modernists did not think that writing as the Romantics didin the 1800s could effectively capture their twentieth-century world or their experiences in that world.

Begin this assignment by choosing a Romantic poem from the nineteenth century that you intend to rewrite in a way that incorporates typically modernist qualities. You can find numerous examples of nineteenth-century Romantic poetry on pages 83–112 of your Journeysanthology. For example, William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” which appears on pages 90–91 of your anthology, is a well-known Romantic poem. Note: You may not use this poem in your answer.

Part 2: Briefly Explain the Romantic Poem You Chose

In a single paragraph, describe the Romantic poem that youselected. Focus on the language, style, literary elements, and themes of the work. This step of the process is important because these are the aspects of the work that your modernist rewrite of it will change. Here, as an example, is a brief explanation of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”:

Most of Wordsworth’s poem describeshow a “crowd” of daffodils near a lake looked as they fluttered in the breeze. This poem uses formal language, has a fixed rhyme scheme, and employs an even meter. The speaker is very closely linked to the poet, and neither the voice nor the perspective in the piece ever shifts. The work contains a number of similes—one compares the speaker to a lonely cloud, another compares the daffodils to stars—and the flowers are personified to make the descriptions of them more vivid. Thematically speaking, the poem is about how, even long after having seen the flowers, the speaker feels comforted and happy whenever he thinks of their beauty.

Part 3: Do a Modernist Rewrite of the Romantic Poem You Chose

Begin your rewrite. To do so, imagine yourself as a poet in the early twentieth century,and imagine your rewrite as an attempt to update the outdated elements of the nineteenth-centurywork you selected. Remember that modernist poems

Capture the cynicism and disappointment many people felt toward outdated nineteenth-century ideas
Focus on the complexities of modern life
Highlight the alienation of the individual in the modern world
Break with past literary traditions and styles
Employ references to diverse cultures, belief systems, and histories
Use experimental language and techniques, such as drawing a distinct line between the poet and the speaker and writing from multiple perspectives and in different voices

Your rewrite mustincorporate at least three of the six listed characteristics of modernism. Here is an example of a modernist rewrite of the first stanza of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”:

Wordsworth’s First Stanza

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

First Stanza of a Modernist Rewrite of Wordsworth

I stood coldly alone, like a World War I flying ace

Who cruises over the shells of bombed-out towns.

Asthe black fog cleared, I saw a building,

Ten thousand crumblecracking bricks;

Beside a forsaken hospital, over a glass-strewn street,

Sagging depressed during Tefnut’s shower.

Part 4: Briefly Explain Your Modernist Rewrite

In a response of at least two paragraphs, provide an explanation of the steps you took to rewrite the Romantic poem you selected. Your explanation should point out at least three typically modernist qualities in your work with regard to elements such as language, style, literary elements, and themes. Here, as an example, is a brief explanation of the modernist rewrite of the first stanza of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”:

In the first stanza of my rewrite, I tried to drastically change the mood of the poem. I did so by first changing the opening simile, linking the speaker (who is most certainly distinct from myself as the poet) to a World War I flying ace looking down on an empty town devastated by war. This image not only calls to mind the destruction that people in the early twentieth century witnessed, but also the loneliness felt by the individual when witnessing such devastation. I introduced ambiguity by not identifying the nationality of the pilot to whom the speaker compares himself: He may be a man seeing the destruction of his own town, or he may be one of the men who brought destruction on the town during battle.

Then I decided to change the daffodils—a symbol of the beauty of the natural world in Wordsworth’s poem—to a crumbling building on an abandoned and ugly street. I thought these images helped convey a sense of loss. I used the wordcrumblecracking—an invented term—to call to mind how the broken bricks of the building look. This type of experimentation with language is typical of modernist poetry. Finally, I used the word forsaken not only because it suggests abandonment, but also because it calls to mind the last words of Jesus on the cross. This allusion then quickly blends into the reference to a mythological figure, Tefnut, the Egyptian goddess of rain and fertility. This allusion hints at the possibility of remaking a new world out of the fragments of the old, yet the “sagging” hospital attests to how hard such a restoration would be. Thematically, I was trying to depict the loneliness and the alienation of the speaker in this decrepit world.

Now begin

 

Choose a Romantic poem from the nineteenth century that you intend to rewrite in a way that incorporates typically modernist qualities. You can find numerous examples of nineteenth-century Romantic poetry on pages 83–112 of your Journeysanthology. Copy the text of the poem here.

Answer:

 

In a single paragraph, describe the Romantic poem that you selected. Focus on the language, style, literary elements, and themes of the work.

Answer:

 

Rewrite the Romantic poem you selected. Focus particularly on making your rewrite read like a modernist poem in terms of its language, style, literary elements, and themes. Be sure to incorporate into your rewrite at least three of the six qualities of modernist poetry listed below.

Remember that modernist poems

Capture the cynicism and disappointment many people felt toward outdated nineteenth-century ideas
Focus on the complexities of modern life
Highlight the alienation of the individual in the modern world
Break with past literary traditions and styles
Employ references to diverse cultures, belief systems, and histories
Use experimental language and techniques, such as drawing a distinct line between the poet and the speaker and writing from multiple perspectives and in different voices

Answer:

 

In a response of at least two paragraphs, provide an explanation of the steps you took to rewrite the Romantic poem you selected. Your explanation should point out at least three typically modernist qualities in your work with regards to things such as language, style, literary elements, and themes.

Answer:

 

Romantic Poetry

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from Songs of Innocence and of Experience

William Blake

Both a poet and a visual artist, William Blake (1757–1827) published many of his poems with vivid engravings of his own design. In 1789, he published a collection of short poems, Songs of Innocence. In 1794, he published Songs of Innocence and of Experience, which included the earlier poems in Songs of Innocence and added a new series of poems, the Songs of Experience. The two collections represent what Blake called “two contrary states of the human soul.” The Songs of Innocence mostly present a childlike view of the world. Some of the Songs of Experienceare closely related to poems from the earlier volume, but express a view-point informed by an awareness of suffering and evil.

The following pages present a selection of companion poems from Songs of Innocence and of Experience:

Songs of Innocence

The Chimney Sweeper [1]
The Divine Image
Infant Joy

Songs of Experience

The Chimney Sweeper [2]
A Divine Image
Infant Sorrow

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The Chimney Sweeper [1]

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry weep weepweepweep.
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head line number5
That curl’d like a lamb’s back, was shav’d, so I said,
“Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”

And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight, line number10
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack
Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black;

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And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open’d the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run, line number15
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father & never want joy. line number20

And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho’ the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm,
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

chimney sweeper: In Blake’s time, young boys often did the dangerous and dirty task of cleaning fireplace chimneys. Many suffered respiratory disease and other ailments, including permanently blackened skin and legs that were bent from carrying heavy loads.

weepweepweepweep: A near-echo of the chimney sweeper’s street cry, “Sweep, sweep, sweep . . . .”

End of Page 85

 

 

The Chimney Sweeper [2]

A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
“Where are thy father & mother? say?”
“They are both gone up to the church to pray.

“Because I was happy upon the heath, line number5
And smil’d among the winter’s snow:
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

“And because I am happy, & dance & sing,
They think they have done me no injury: line number10
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King
Who make up a heaven of our misery.”

heath: a tract of land with few plants or trees

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The Divine Image

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, line number5
Is God, our father dear:
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face, line number10
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine, line number15
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew.
Where Mercy, Love, & Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too. line number20

clime: region

heathen: a person without religious convictions or faith

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A Divine Image

Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face,
Terror, the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy, the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is forgèd Iron, line number5
The Human Form, a fiery Forge,
The Human Face, a Furnace seal’d,
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.

forge: a workplace where metal is melted and shaped

gorge: the passage from the throat to the stomach

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Infant Joy

“I have no name,
I am but two days old.”
What shall I call thee?
“I happy am,
Joy is my name.” line number5
Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!
Sweet joy but two days old,
Sweet joy I call thee;
Thou dost smile, line number10
I sing the while—
Sweet joy befall thee.

Infant Sorrow

My mother groand! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt,
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my father’s hands, line number5
Striving against my swadling bands;
Bound and weary I thought best
To sulk upon my mother’s breast.

befall: come to; happen; come to pass

groand: obsolete spelling of groaned

swadling bands: pieces of cloth wrapped around an infant

sulk: mope

End of Page 89

 

 

 

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770–1850), one of the founders of the Romantic movement in poetry in England, often found inspiration in nature. This well-known poem is sometimes called “The Daffodils.”

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, line number5
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay: line number10
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

vales: valleys

margin: edge; shore

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The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay, line number15
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood, line number20
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

jocund: jovial; happy

pensive: thoughtful

bliss: great happiness; blessing

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Lines Written in Early Spring

William Wordsworth

This poem first appeared in a 1798 volume titled Lyrical Ballads, a book with works by both Wordsworth and his friend and fellow Romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link line number5
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; line number10
And ‘tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

grove: a wooded area

sate: obsolete form of sat

grieved: saddened

primrose tufts: bunches of a plant with white, red, or yellow flowers

bower: a place enclosed by tree branches or vines

periwinkle: a plant with blue flowers

End of Page 92

 

 

 

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made, line number15
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread our their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there. line number20

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

lament: mourn; be sad over

End of Page 93

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kubla Khan

Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

With his friend and fellow poet William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was one of the founders of the Romantic movement in English poetry. Of the following poem, Coleridge said that, waking from “a profound sleep,” he “instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines,” only to be interrupted by “a person on business.” More than an hour later, as he tried to resume writing, he found that the vision “had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream.”

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea. line number5
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills, line number10
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

Xanadu: the luxurious summer capital of Kubla Khan’s kingdom

Kubla Khan: a thirteenth-century ruler of the Mongols, who lived in what is now Mongolia and northwestern China

decree: order

Alph: a fictional river

girdled: encircled; ringed

sinuous rills: curved streams

End of Page 94

 

 

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted line number15
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil
seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst line number20
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion line number25
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war! line number30

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The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device, line number35
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

athwart: diagonally across from

cedarn: made of cedar wood

turmoil: chaos; tumult

seething: moving as though furious

half-intermitted: half-interrupted

chaffy grain: the inedible part of grain

thresher’s flail: the harvester’s swinging motion

meandering: twisting

tumult: commotion; uproar

prophesying: predicting

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A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played, line number40
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long, line number45
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair! line number50
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

dulcimer: a stringed instrument

Abyssinian: one from a region in Africa that is present-day Ethiopia

Mount Abora: perhaps Mount Amara in Abyssinia

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When We Two Parted

George Gordon, Lord Byron

In his time, Lord Byron (1788–1824) was known the world over. He was both a poet and a celebrity, described by one French critic as “the model that contemporaries invest with their admiration and sympathy.” His poetry, often marked by passionate feeling, captures one defining aspect of the Romantic temperament.

1

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold, line number5
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

2

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow— line number10
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken, line number15
And share in its shame.

sever: separate; split

foretold: predicted

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3

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o’er me—
Why wert thou so dear? line number20
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

4

In secret we met— line number25
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years, line number30
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.

knell: the sound of a bell tolled at a funeral

wert: obsolete form of were

rue: lament

End of Page 98

 

 

 

Darkness

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Lord Byron’s “Darkness” was published in 1816, known as the “year without a summer” because in the previous year a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia altered the world’s weather patterns. Byron’s poetic imagination transformed these events into an apocalyptic vision of the end of life on earth.

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; line number5
Morn came, and went—and came, and brought
no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, line number10
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing
homes
To look once more into each other’s face; line number15
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain’d;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks line number20
Extinguish’d with a crash—and all was black.

darkling: in the dark

beacons: fires used to aid people in navigation

End of Page 99

 

The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest line number25
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again line number30
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds
shriek’d,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl’d line number35
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food:
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;—a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart line number40
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was
death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; line number45
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

disquietude: anxiety

pall: a burial cloth, used to cover a corpse or coffin

tremulous: shaking with fear

twined: intertwined

glut: feed ravenously

sate: obsolete form of sat

pang: sharp, sudden pain

entrails: intestines

assail’d: attacked

corse: obsolete word for corpse

End of Page 100

 

The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead line number50
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two line number55
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,
Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up, line number60
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton
hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld line number65
Each other’s aspects—saw, and shriek’d, and
died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful—was a lump, line number70
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, line number75
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they
dropp’d
They slept on the abyss without a surge—

lank: long and skinny; thinned

piteous: pathetic

aspects: faces

void: empty

piecemeal: piece by piece

abyss: a seemingly unending chasm

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The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon their mistress had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air, line number80
And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the universe.

stagnant: unmoving

End of Page 102

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ode to the West Wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley

In his time, Shelley (1792–1822) was a controversial figure, both for his radical politics and his unconventional personal life. After marrying his second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (the author of Frankenstein), Shelley moved to Italy, where he wrote “Ode to the West Wind.” About this ode (a lyric poem in high, formal style, with elaborate stanza forms), Shelley wrote: “This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno [River], near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapors which pour down the autumnal rains.”

1

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O Thou, line number5
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

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pestilence-stricken: struck with disease

chariotest: transport

azure: a light shade of blue

End of Page 103

 

 

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill line number10
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

2

Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s line number15
commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aery surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head line number20

Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou Dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, line number25
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain and fire and hail will burst: O hear!

clarion: a medieval brass instrument, like a trumpet, with a clear, piercing sound

hues: colors

Mænad: an ecstatic or extremely emotional woman (from Greek mythology, after the frenzied worshippers of Dionysus)

zenith: summit; highest point

dirge: a funeral hymn; a song of lamentation

End of Page 104

3

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, line number30
Lulled by the coil of his chrystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers line number35
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know line number40

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

4

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share line number45

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

chrystalline: clear or bright

pumice: a volcanic rock

Baiæ’s bay: the Bay of Naples in Italy

quivering: trembling; shaking

cleave: slice; cut

despoil: defile; damage

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The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed line number50
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed line number55
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

5

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, line number60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse, line number65

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? line number70

outstrip: surpass

skiey: heavenly; resembling the sky

striven: attempted; tried

lyre: a harp

impetuous: impulsive; reckless

withered: shrunken

incantation: chant

hearth: a fireplace

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La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

John Keats

John Keats (1795–1821) died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. In his short career, he produced a lasting and influential body of poetry that expresses the Romantic cultivation of deep and intense feeling. Keats wrote “La Belle Dame sans Merci” in 1819, but he took the title from a work by a fifteenth-century French poet. In English, the poem’s title is “The Beautiful Woman Without Pity.”

1

O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

2

O what can ail thee, knight at arms, line number5
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

ail: sicken; make unwell or uneasy

loitering: waiting; lingering

sedge: a small, grassy plant that commonly grows in wet areas

wither’d: shriveled; shrunken

haggard: tired

woe-begone: miserably sad

granary: a structure for storing food

End of Page 107

3

I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew, line number10
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

4

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light, line number15
And her eyes were wild.

5

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan. line number20

6

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy’s song.

meads: meadows

garland: a wreath made of flowers or leaves

zone: a cincture or girdle; a band of material around the waist

steed: horse

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7

She found me roots of relish sweet, line number25
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
I love thee true.

8

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore, line number30
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

9

And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d line number35
On the cold hill’s side.

10

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death pale were they all;
They cried—“La belle dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!” line number40

grot: grotto; a small cave

betide: happen to

in thrall: enslaved; in a state of servitude

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11

I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill’s side.

12

And this is why I sojourn here, line number45
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

gloam: the twilight

sojourn: dwell temporarily

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Ode on Melancholy

John Keats

Keats wrote his “Ode on Melancholy” in 1819. An ode is a lyric poem in a high, formal style, with elaborate stanza forms.

1

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries, line number5
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. line number10

Lethe: in Greek mythology, one of the rivers that runs through the underworld, from which the souls of the dead drink in order to forget their past lives

wolf’s-bane . . . nightshade: poisonous plants

Prosperine: in ancient Roman mythology, a woman abducted by Hades and made goddess of the underworld

Psyche: In ancient mythology, Psyche, or the soul, was sometimes represented as a butterfly or moth.

downy: covered in soft feathers

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2

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, line number15
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. line number20

3

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight line number25
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose
strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. line number30

fosters: aids

glut: feed ravenously; flood

peonies: large, fragrant flowers

emprison: obsolete spelling of imprison

adieu: farewell

nigh: near

sovran: obsolete spelling of sovereign

strenuous: demanding

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