[indartwm]

While these one off-ers are interesting I suggest we present poems , poets we cherish a lot so that we can discuss in detail (why we like what we quote etc.) and introduce him/her to the rest of us.

[Kemapreedasse]

I adore Shakespeare! Next, Shelley is my favourite- our Bharathi's English counterpart in rich, bold, fantastic imagination & usage of words. This is my favourite from Shelley for its sheer beauty of imagery, passion & pathos:


P. B. Shelley

Ode to the West Wind

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
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
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(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!

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! they are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, ev'n 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,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst-O hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
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
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear
And tremble and despoil themselves:-O hear!

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
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable!-if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision,-I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, ev'n 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,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

[tobia]

I have struggled to enjoy Shelley. Most of the Shelley (and Wordsworth) I learnt were in classrooms in middle school where we were given to understand that these folks were good for learning of the language. Much like : "eat the vegetables they are good for you" So these metaphysical wrestlings have never been my cup of tea. I always felt very distant from these poems.

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Beautiful line.

Bharathi was a famous Shelley fan. In Gnanarajasekaran's biopic Bharathi, there is a scene where the Raja of Ettaiyapuram is on his royal procession. All townfolk pay respect to the Raja as he passes his house. When Bharathi is asked by his anxious well-wisher to come down down and pay his respects to the King - who was also his employer - Bharathi refuses citing that the Shelley society is session. The soceity - consists of Bharathi and two other fellows who listen on as he recites Shelley.

The enraged Raja dismisses the arrogant Bharathi who adds insult to injury by thanking the king for dismissing him. He walks away reading aloud: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

[catermos]

I have struggled to enjoy Shelley. Most of the Shelley (and Wordsworth) I learnt were in classrooms in middle school where we were given to understand that these folks were good for learning of the language. Much like : "eat the vegetables they are good for you" So these metaphysical wrestlings have never been my cup of tea. I always felt very distant from these poems.

Originally Posted by Shelley If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Beautiful line.

Bharathi was a famous Shelley fan. In Gnanarajasekaran's biopic Bharathi, there is a scene where the Raja of Ettaiyapuram is on his royal procession. All townfolk pay respect to the Raja as he passes his house. When Bharathi is asked by his anxious well-wisher to come down down and pay his respects to the King - who was also his employer - Bharathi refuses citing that the Shelley society is session. The soceity - consists of Bharathi and two other fellows who listen on as he recites Shelley.

The enraged Raja dismisses the arrogant Bharathi who adds insult to injury by thanking the king for dismissing him. He walks away reading aloud: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" The quoted incident makes both Bharathi & Shelley dearer still to me! That unbending, dauntless spirit is a sparkling extra dimension to a true poet!

Q, your analysis is simply AWESOME! I am very glad you UNDERSTOOD, EMPATHISED! Length is no problem with me any time so long as the matter is relishable like this one. You may let yourself immersed into the richness of imagery & imagination of this poem & just enjoy the luxury of FEELING every beat/throb of the poet's poignant soul!

The wind as a cyclone is a destroyer & as rain-bearing gales preserver is how I interpret it!

[ClapekDodki]

Ode to the West Wind

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
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 Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(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!

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! they are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, ev'n 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,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst-O hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
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
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear
And tremble and despoil themselves:-O hear!

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
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable!-if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision,-I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, ev'n 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,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

[Hankie]

Q, I love every bit of the poem, not one single line, imagery or message.

Yet, particularly special are these lines:

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 Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(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

Thou dirge
Of the dying year,
Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!


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,

O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! ----VERY VERY POIGNANT LINES! IT RENDS MY HEART TO HEAR A BRAVE HEART TORN!


Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy!----A DARING, DESPERATE ASPIRATION/AMBITION!

O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? ---WORDS OF GOLD! QUINTESSENCE OF OPTIMISM/POSITIVE THINKING. MY VERY FAVOURITE QUOTE!

[ChebuRAtoR]

When one reads a poem and fails to connect to it - one can't but help feel a sense of loss. The poet's preoccuppations and their intensity are there but the experience reaches a high only if the reader is able to connect to it. The effort to go beyond the words, abandon the shells of cynicism is not always fruitful. It is a pure hit or miss Mrs.PP and Q, I must say I really envy how you have experienced this poem.

The quoted incident makes both Bharathi & Shelley dearer still to me!

Bharathi's KuyilpAttu is supposed to be inspired by Shelley's Ode to a Skylark.

I recall a lovely line from a different Shelley poem that I unable to place:

an ever moving joyless eye
finds nothing worth its constancy

I've forgotten the poem but this line just stayed with me. Even with the context you just cannot say whether the line is judgemental or not

[foI3fKWv]

I recall a lovely line from a different Shelley poem that I unable to place:

an ever moving joyless eye
finds nothing worth its constancy

It's from a fragment of a poem he never finished, which his wife published under the title "To the moon" The words are slightly different from what you remember:

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a Joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

[mrPronmaker]

I have struggled to enjoy Shelley. Most of the Shelley (and Wordsworth) I learnt were in classrooms in middle school where we were given to understand that these folks were good for learning of the language. Much like : "eat the vegetables they are good for you" So these metaphysical wrestlings have never been my cup of tea. I always felt very distant from these poems.

How did you get on with Ozymandias?

Actually, I had a similar difficulty when I encountered Shelley in middle school - the problem was that his poems are long, and definitely not modern in tone, which means it is often hard work at the start. It's a question of how the poems are introduced to readers, I think. I remember that my grandfather cured me of my unwillingness to read "To a skylark" by pointing me to a verse towards the end:

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

This, and the three verses that come after, convinced me that the poem - and much else that Shelley wrote - was worth reading, and I pretty soon came to love his imagery and his choice of words, even if I don't quite agree with his attitude to life.

[UriyVlasov]

Yes, shelley's 'Ode to a skylark' is another gem!

podalangai, I don't quite get what you mean by not being able to agree to Shelley's attitude to life. Please elaborate on your opinion!

[leareliovag]

Wow guys... feast to our creative minds!

To the limited extent I knew shelly, I always find him, though easy
enough to comprehend the overall beauty of the poem, very laborious and complicated to enjoy the bits and pieces. I had to strain and take that extra step to chew the tastiest bits hidden behind sheilded similies. Its like kamalhassan's comedy movies with crazy mohan's dialogue, u miss a minute, then u skip one of those choicest comedy. U wink your eye, you miss minute body language and subtler dialogue deliveries.

When I tend to read past in a hurry, I miss lot of beautiful dreamy picturisque beauty poet tried to capture, then I read , and read and read again.

Ah Finally I suppose my mind is painting those yellow and red and withered leaves which fall and dance in the air. As ever, there are messages left behind for mankind.

Thanks a lot to our dear Q, who multiplied my enjoyment and made it very easy for me, with her analysis and interpretation. As much as I enjoyed shelley, I enjoyed Q's post which acted as a torch and pointed out the beauty decors with right emphasis.

[tscii]


Furthermore look at all the rich coloured images that he uses...all are being charged and invigorated by the winds power..these i have hi lighted in red....as simple as saying fire brings to mind all these crackling, ferocious crimsons, yellows, whites, fiery oranges....see how many times leaves is mentioned..and specifically autumn leaves...the most colourful leaves of all...and then see how the colours and colour images fade into gray and ash to the bleakness of winter...see how much death imagery is associated with winter (highlighted in brown)

Finally all I could picture is, you, me and everybody, mechanically following a cycle. Few on the ground sore and low as fallen leaves, few in their prime beauty and life blooming blossoming on trees, and we all helplessly wait for our next change.

Like a cycle...

waiting for snow, rain, heat, and sometimes... somewhere... spring too for split seconds.

[ivandiadser]

Originally Posted by Prabhu Ram I recall a lovely line from a different Shelley poem that I unable to place:

an ever moving joyless eye
finds nothing worth its constancy

It's from a fragment of a poem he never finished, which his wife published under the title "To the moon" The words are slightly different from what you remember:

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionlessAmong the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a Joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy? Goodone ! I remember lot of such tamizh poems, where moon is tugged along as a companion, to describe poet's own plight.

I remember jeevan's confusion which, on acquisition, dismisses all earthly joys as "neti neti" to seeking something permanent.

[gniewkoit]

It's from a fragment of a poem he never finished, which his wife published under the title "To the moon" The words are slightly different from what you remember:

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a Joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

Beautiful.
Thanks podalangai.

How did you get on with Ozymandias?

Must say we are not the best of friends
My strained relationship with Shelley can be attributed to the fact I was introduced to his poems in school. So I had to approach them with dread that I had to be prepared to paraphrase and innocent looking couplet. Plus something like Ozymandias so easily lends the teacher an opportunity to go on a didactic tangent. Immaterial whether the poet wanted to get moral.

While I have never had problems with didactism in Tamil, in English I was cynic just too early. Thinking about it, it is perhaps founded on some deep-rooted impression that Tamil is much more naive a language/culture. Till date naive's equivalent in Tamil is almost a compliment.

Actually, I had a similar difficulty when I encountered Shelley in middle school - the problem was that his poems are long, and definitely not modern in tone, which means it is often hard work at the start.

The verses you quote are indeed the ones that stand-out in Ode to a Skylark

[Beatris]

Originally Posted by podalangai
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Suga raagam sogam thanE!!?!! Why?

Is it always because of 'other sides of coin' concept?

Belief! Faith! (which keeps the world rotating)

Always on wait for the next cycle, like those leaves waiting for another season with hope.

Wodehouse in the preface to his short story collection :"The Clicking of Cuthbert":

As a writer of light fiction, I have always till now been handicapped by the fact that my disposition was cheerful, my heart intact, and my life unsoured. Handicapped, I say, because the public likes to feel that a writer of farcical stories is piquantly miserable in his private life, and that, if he turns out anything amusing, he does it simply in order to obtain relief from the almost insupportable weight of an existence which he has long since realized to be a wash-out. Well, today I am just like that.

[JeffStewart]

podalangai, I don't quite get what you mean by not being able to agree to Shelley's attitude to life. Please elaborate on your opinion!

He had strong ideas about things such as free love, with which I don't agree, but which were an intrinsic component of his philosophy of what an ideal life should be like.

A character in one of Aldous Huxley's books calls Shelley a cross between a fairy and a white slug (Huxley didn't quite go that far himself - he was parodying some of Shelley's critics). I think I personally, like Huxley, love the intensity of Shelley's vision of what he called "intellectual beauty", but I don't always like the results of applying it in the real world.

[gundas]

While I have never had problems with didactism in Tamil, in English I was cynic just too early. Thinking about it, it is perhaps founded on some deep-rooted impression that Tamil is much more naive a language/culture. Till date naive's equivalent in Tamil is almost a compliment.

Didacticism in Tamil is qualitatively different. Much of the body of didactic poetry in English carries the huge burden that English classicism is rooted in a different - and alien - tradition. Tamil classicism, on the other hand, is native to the Tamil soil and Tamil thinking - which gives much didactic poetry in Tamil a wonderful freshness. This isn't universally true - Tamil poetry, too, can be awful when it tries to artifically root itself in a foreign tradition, as a comparison of Manimegalai (incredibly bad didacticism) and Sivaga Sintamani (incredibly beautiful didacticism) shows. It's the same in English. Didactic Anglo-Saxon poetry, for example, has the same freshness to it that Tamil poetry had. Consider this beautiful example from the Seafarer:

gedroren is þeos duguð eal dreamas sind gewitene
wuniað þa wacran ond þas woruld healdaþ
brucað þurh bisgo blæd is gehnæged
eorþan indryhto ealdað ond searað
swa nu monna gehwylc geond middangeard
yldo him on fareð onsyn blacað
gomelfeax gnornað wat his iuwine
æþelinga bearn eorþan forgiefene

"All this splendour has fallen, visions have withered. The weak remain and hold the world, worn with toil. The leaves fall, earth's glories grow old and fade. And now every man, throughout Middle-earth, meets age bleak-faced and withered-haired, grieving, knowing that his old friends, children of noble ones, have been given to earth." My translation is not perfect - the original has much more power - but I think even this should convey that it has much of the direct, unartificed ("natippaRRa") quality that gives Tamil didacticism its beauty. This is pretty common in Anglo-Saxon poems, and in the best Middle English didactic poetry, when there were still roots in the native tradition strong enough that poets could combine classical allusions with a very English (or Scottish) expression - Dunbar's "Lament for the makaris" (Lament for the poets) is a particularly fine example. Or for that matter, in contemporary poetry, which has more or less abandoned poetic convention in favour of directness of expression. In Shelley's time, though, things were different, which is why his poetry can seem a lot more artificed, and difficult to relate to, unless you're used to the classicised way of expression which was natural to the time.

[codecouponqw]

That bit of info about Shelley's preference for the concept of 'free love' is news to me. Anyway, do we not wink at idiosyncracies, vagaries, waywardness or even serious personal 'weaknesses' of geniuses, for the sake of respecting their genius?

[horoshevapola]

That bit of info about Shelley's preference for the concept of 'free love' is news to me. Anyway, do we not wink at idiosyncracies, vagaries, waywardness or even serious personal 'weaknesses' of geniuses, for the sake of respecting their genius?

It took me a while to come around to that point of view. I was bitterly disappointed when I found out about his views on love!

[RedImmik]

Glad to see you concurring with me, podalangai!

[PNCarl]

Didactism-la ivvaLO matter irukkA. As always, thanks for the info podalangai.

This isn't universally true - Tamil poetry, too, can be awful when it tries to artifically root itself in a foreign tradition, as a comparison of Manimegalai (incredibly bad didacticism) and Sivaga Sintamani (incredibly beautiful didacticism) shows.

Ok. Haven't had the chance to read either.
I just read a SilappadhikAram-for-beginners book. And the last kaaNdam kind of dragged. Not entirely because of any didacticism but also because of repetitive, seemingly empty, paens and a near complete lack of drama (atleast in comparison to the previous kaaNdam).

But at the very end there is also a tightly packed and stuff didactic passage which seems like ThirukkuRaL quick-reader in the sense that there so much content overlap. But I didn't find it enjoyable at all. It sounded so much like a sermon and seemed to sucked out what makes the kuRaL beautiful. In the view of the lay first time reader, it left a bad taste for the whole epic. So much so that I was reluctant to start on ManimEgalai. I will ride on your dismissal to add justification to my postponing that epic :P

But I don't get what is the foreign-tradition in this whole thing.(i.e. Manimekalai vs. SivacintAmaNi). Thanks for the efforts to translates the poem, I get a feel of the difference (from Shelley). But I am still trying to see what is native about the poem you quoted which isn't there in Shelley.

To be precise...

combine classical allusions with a very English (or Scottish) expression

....which was not the case in Shelley's time, right ? An example....?