Sea Poems

Now that a heat wave is covering the Eastern part of the U.S., thoughts and dreams as well as lucky bodies turn toward the ocean and its beaches. Here are a few poems and songs for the season.

Sail Away

Rabindranath Tagore

Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat,
only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this our
pilgrimage to no country and to no end.

In that shoreless ocean,
at thy silently listening smile my songs would swell in melodies,
free as waves, free from all bondage of words.

Is the time not come yet?
Are there works still to do?
Lo, the evening has come down upon the shore
and in the fading light the seabirds come flying to their nests.

Who knows when the chains will be off,
and the boat, like the last glimmer of sunset,
vanish into the night?

Another, different poem/song with the refrain, Sail Away is “Orinoco Flow,” by Enya, but here is a Medieval version by Bardcore with places known in that era:

Then for a taste of the pirate in all (or many) of us:

Son of a Son of a Sailor

Jimmy Buffet

As the son of a son of a sailor
I went out on the sea for adventure
Expanding the view of the captain and crew
Like a man just released from indenture

As a dreamer of dreams and a travelin’ man
I have chalked up many a mile
Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks
And I learned much from both of their styles

Son of a son, son of a son
Son of a son of a sailor
Son of a gun, load the last ton
One step ahead of the jailer

Now away in the near future
Southeast of disorder
You can shake the hand of the mango man
As he greets you at the border

And the lady she hails from Trinidad
Island of the spices
Salt for your meat, and cinnamon sweet
And the rum is for all your good vices

Haul the sheet in as we ride on the wind
That our forefathers harnessed before us
Hear the bells ring as the tight rigging sings
It’s a son of a gun of a chorus

Where it all ends I can’t fathom my friends
If I knew I might toss out my anchor
So I cruise along always searchin’ for songs
Not a lawyer a thief or a banker

But a son of a son, son of a son
Son of a son of a sailor
Son of a gun, load the last ton
One step ahead of the jailer

I’m just a son of a son, son of a son
Son of a son of a sailor
The sea’s in my veins, my tradition remains
I’m just glad I don’t live in a trailer

Son of a Son of a Sailor lyrics © Coral Reefer Music

Jimmy Buffet (this version with the Zac Brown Band):

And now for a more serious side, the serious side of the sea and its power, it covers 70% of the planet.

“A Salty Dog” by Procol Harum

I was thinking of Stephen Crane’s famous short story, “The Open Boat,” which is available online to read for free, and how in his life I think he wanted to believe in heroes but often saw something else. In “The Open Boat” there were heroes. I wrote a fantasy in which he played an even larger part:

Sea Poem

Evening comes, channel bells toll, dozing, 
off the coast of Florida, he is dreaming,
dreaming down beneath the ship
where shadows breathe and surf echoes,
the ocean’s roar in a huge shell of coastline,
but the dream of dark and peaceful depths
is shredded by howling in a larger shell,
bell of the sky, and he rises to a shuddering deck
into slashing rain and great rolling waves,
and in the water men with outflung hands,
in the night they are all around,
bodies twined around with seesawing lights,
skeletons dancing, constellations exploding.
The ship is wrecked, will they all drown?

He jumps to the lifeboat, pulls a man to safety,
a fist of a wave knocks him overboard
and he collides with the body of another man,
he holds the wounded sailor, cradles his shoulders
in the rollicking surf, swimming at cross purposes
to the sea, battered by wind and waves,
he keeps the man in his grip
as ghosts hover, seahorses teem in the rain,
and the hours smash his body, moonlight flowers
until dawn breaks amber and green,
and they are plucked from the sea into the lifeboat
and safe but shaken the survivors hear the sea
speak in all the voices of the world,
connecting those adrift to those onshore.

From “The Open Boat,” by Stephen Crane

“When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea’s voice to the men on shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.”

On January 2, 1897, American writer Stephen Crane survives the sinking of The Commodore off the coast of Florida. He will turn the harrowing event into his class short story, “The Open Boat” (1897).

And by Derek Walcott:

Midsummer, Tobago

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat.
A green river.

A bridge,
scorched yellow palms

from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.

Days I have held,
days I have lost,

days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms. 

And by Lewis Carroll:

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?

Florida Poems

Orlando

Marco Island

Tarpon Springs

I grew up in Florida and know the state has many layers. It’s a complex place with a long history, going back to ancient indigenous civilizations and early Spanish explorers in search of treasure and the Fountain of Youth.

Florida gets a bad rap in the media and recent events haven’t helped dispel the reputation of the state as a place where people do crazy things. When I was 12, I began to write about it. What evolved was a long poem, “The Sailor Circus,” named for the Sarasota high school afterschool circus program (which still exists). In my 20s, an agent encouraged me to write a novel based on the poem, but she later decided not to take it on. For many years both the poem and novel languished among my papers and computer files. A few years ago I used much of it in a novella, Covenant: Growing up in Florida’s Lost Paradise. These past few weeks I added in more of the original words, adapting them when needed to fit the narrative. And then, I took parts of it and made this poem. I’m offering it to give people a different perspective on the great state, the elusive and always transforming, place called Florida.

Florida

Visions of Atlantis.
The trading ships of the world come into harbor,
bringing their gift, their legacy.
Sailing, circling, orbiting, we ride the tides,
before we merge with the fold and mantle of sea and sky, 
will we circle around to the other side,
     will we come back alive?

The resort town lies weblike on Florida’s Gulf Coast,
banyan roots in backland glades,
points of anchorage, where gravity takes hold,
rolls the city up each night like a window-shade.
Each morning beneath a peg-leg, pirate's sun,
the land unfurls, surfaces beneath the surface of the sky.
Mirages and miracles: buildings, beaches, marinas, 
     alligator farms, the circus. 

White pelicans mirror the clouds, 
moonflowers glow, passion vine 
and coral bells flourish, herons nest,
and a mockingbird sings of paradise. 
Ghost towns in morning glory and dust, 
carnivals and suburban malls in the marshes.
On the southern Gulf Coast, burial grounds
     of forgotten civilizations.

Echoes of Atlantis. 
Lost worlds, new worlds spiral, drop,
      rise and soar in a divine glare.

Gulf Coast’s angels’ wings and rare Juno shells,
a sea of dreams, with all things sailing
we navigate by the sun and moon,
flowing into ports of call, 
sailing with grief and ecstasy,
     the circuitous circus.

The trading ships of the world come into harbor,
bringing their gift, their legacy—
the heavy vessels of the past empty their holds
and are refilled, flowing to the future with a purpose—
we carry precious cargo: hope, love.
Swinging across the globe, in tumult and calm,
we circle with the joy of fulfillment in time,
creating designs so potent
     they shape eternity.

Copyright 1974-revised 2022 by Mary Clark

The song, “A Salty Piece of Land,” by Jimmy Buffet, who pioneered Caribbean Rock’n’Roll in Key West, Florida, communicates the allure of a place, the sense of freedom, on the boundless sea.

Mary Clark’s fiction and poetry, all set in Florida:

Children of Light, poetry novel, Ten Penny Players/Bard Press

Covenant, Growing Up in Florida’s Lost Paradise (kindle only)

The Horizon Seekers, Amazon/Kindle

Racing The Sun, The Horizon Seekers Series Volume 2, Amazon/Kindle and Smashwords

Poems in Time of War

In too many countries, people are suffering today. These poems remind me of the families trapped in Eastern Ukraine, and those in Afghanistan and Yemen wracked by hunger and lack of medical care.

The first poem is by Kim Stafford.

Atrocity

Once war begins, you will need to decide
where to draw the line—carnage, after all,
has its courtesies: I will kill soldiers, but not
civilians…and I will bomb barracks, but not
hospitals or schools. In the smoke, though,
once it’s all flash and blur, in fear, thrill, rage
things get confused, something clicks, and soon
your fury spills over. What was a city becomes
atrocity. You shot civilians, then you are gunning
for civilization. You fired at the heart, but now
it’s the back of the head, it’s that boy on a bike,
it’s this grandmother offending by having a face
and hands, so you leave her in a heap. Retreating
through rust and wreckage, you abandon the soul
that leaked from your body, a sheen of slime, a stain.

This poem by John A. Huddart exemplifies the callousness of war, when countries recruit others or appeal to them to help in a war effort, but when the need is gone?

Empire Windrush

Empire Windrush. Grey ghost of war.
Twin-funnelled troopship bringing back
the Forces from their newsreels, outposts,
and jungle camps. From last posts, and lowering flags.

She’s slow and diesel driven – and launched
as Monte Rosa in a German yard.
A cruiser for vacations, and the middle classes.
And then the Kreigsmarine. Berthship
to the Tirpitz, Auschwitz ferry for Norwegian
Jews – endures air attacks and mines. Survives.

Under British hands, she pays the price
of peace. White paint shrouds sides
that buckled under war. Blighty-bound,
half empty, calls at Kingston and offers
passage to a thousand citizens, newly minted
by a government desperate for willing hands.

Curious to see the land so many fought
to save, they find the forty quid and come
aboard. Thus filled with hope she sails
for England, and a place in history the Equal
of Trafalgar, Agincourt or Waterloo.

New waters for the future meet
her prow. At Tilbury, grey frowning
skies rain blessings and surprise.
It’s June, but cool enough to stand
and shiver on the docks, and wait
to fill the shortages they’re here to satisfy.

The Windrush sails away. Empire sunsets
churned froth and pother at her stern. At last,
she burns and sinks, her contribution made.

A generation makes its home, ignoring
cards in doors and shops that advertise
“No coloureds”. The slums and cities make
them room, and heritage adds on another page.

Once enslaved, transported chained, plantation-
bound, then freed to poverty’s thin dreams,
they London’s voices richly spice with sun,
and suffering. Deepened and engaged, English
suddenly awake finds new rhythms in its feet.

It takes a dozen years or more for startled
whites to close the door on opportunity.
Betrayal shakes a hostile hand, minds fill
with wasting tribal fear. The voice of England
forgets the rights of man, the promises of war.

Each party over, every politician clamours
For the closing of the doors, and seeks a way to send
the yearning back to their hovels or the sea.

Windrush rises from the deeps and sails again,
evoked by ministers who bend the rules,
and marks the careless crimes of those whose biros
sign the orders to deport. Black heroes flew
and fought to hold the spread of camps, and
looked for better orders – now fall to age,
feel clerks’ indifference with quotas to fulfill.

The River Windrush flows and flows,
and adds more depths to English as it goes.

Empire Windrush on J. A. Huddart’s website.

And this poem by David Selzer about one of the universal symbols of the cost of war, and a human being whose life was taken too soon, as so many have been, and still are today.

4th August 1944

_{Anne Frank}

The canal dapples the office ceiling.
Upstairs, the fugitives are still as dust.
A siren unpeoples the city.
Into the waiting sky, with the raucous gulls
and the chestnut, her words like breathing…Her life
has turned, beyond all her desires, so
brutally to art…They packed and waited:
beyond, a locked compartment to themselves
and telephone wires curvetting by –
then countrysides of shuddering, noisome wagons.
She died alone. Her father made her grief,
her love public as Europe: spoke her words
into the empty sky.

Here are several poems of hope and resilience as well.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World, by Adam Zagajewski, a Polish poet.

Dance of Peace, by Gabriela Mistral

What poem or poems about war and human conflict do you think are the most effective? The most insightful?

The Cry of the Children

In doing research for my next post, I came upon this incredible poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The Cry of the Children

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Pheu pheu, ti prosderkesthe m ommasin, tekna;" [[Alas, alas, why do you gaze at me with your eyes, my children.]]—Medea. 

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
      Ere the sorrow comes with years ?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
      And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;
   The young birds are chirping in the nest ;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;
   The young flowers are blowing toward the west—
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
      They are weeping bitterly !
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
      In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
      Why their tears are falling so ?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow
      Which is lost in Long Ago —
The old tree is leafless in the forest —
   The old year is ending in the frost —
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest —
   The old hope is hardest to be lost :
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
      Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
      In our happy Fatherland ?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
      And their looks are sad to see,
For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses
      Down the cheeks of infancy —
"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;"
   "Our young feet," they say, "are very weak !"
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary —
   Our grave-rest is very far to seek !
Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,
      For the outside earth is cold —
And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
      And the graves are for the old !"

"True," say the children, "it may happen
      That we die before our time !
Little Alice died last year her grave is shapen
      Like a snowball, in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her —
   Was no room for any work in the close clay :
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
   Crying, 'Get up, little Alice ! it is day.'
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
   With your ear down, little Alice never cries ;
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
   For the smile has time for growing in her eyes ,—
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
      The shroud, by the kirk-chime !
It is good when it happens," say the children,
      "That we die before our time !"

Alas, the wretched children ! they are seeking
      Death in life, as best to have !
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
      With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city —
   Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do —
Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty
   Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through !
But they answer, " Are your cowslips of the meadows
      Like our weeds anear the mine ?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
      From your pleasures fair and fine!

"For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
      And we cannot run or leap —
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
      To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping —
   We fall upon our faces, trying to go ;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
   The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,
      Through the coal-dark, underground —
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
      In the factories, round and round.

"For all day, the wheels are droning, turning, —
      Their wind comes in our faces, —
Till our hearts turn, — our heads, with pulses burning,
      And the walls turn in their places
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling —
   Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, —
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling —
   All are turning, all the day, and we with all ! —
And all day, the iron wheels are droning ;
      And sometimes we could pray,
'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)
      'Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' 

"Ay ! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing
      For a moment, mouth to mouth —
Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
      Of their tender human youth !
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
   Is not all the life God fashions or reveals —
Let them prove their inward souls against the notion
   That they live in you, or under you, O wheels ! —
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
      As if Fate in each were stark ;
And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,
      Spin on blindly in the dark.

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
      To look up to Him and pray —
So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,
      Will bless them another day.
They answer, " Who is God that He should hear us,
   While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
   Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word !
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
      Strangers speaking at the door :
Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
      Hears our weeping any more ?

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember ;
      And at midnight's hour of harm, —
'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,
      We say softly for a charm.
We know no other words, except 'Our Father,'
   And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
   And hold both within His right hand which is strong.
'Our Father !' If He heard us, He would surely
      (For they call Him good and mild)
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
      'Come and rest with me, my child.'

"But, no !" say the children, weeping faster,
      " He is speechless as a stone ;
And they tell us, of His image is the master
      Who commands us to work on.
"Go to ! " say the children,—"up in Heaven,
    Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find !
Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbelieving —
   We look up for God, but tears have made us blind."
Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,
      O my brothers, what ye preach ?
For God's possible is taught by His world's loving —
      And the children doubt of each.

And well may the children weep before you ;
      They are weary ere they run ;
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
      Which is brighter than the sun :
They know the grief of man, without its wisdom ;
   They sink in the despair, without its calm —
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, —
   Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm, —
Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly
      No dear remembrance keep,—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly :
      Let them weep ! let them weep !

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,
      And their look is dread to see,
For they think you see their angels in their places,
      With eyes meant for Deity ;—
"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation,
   Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, —
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
   And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ?
Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants,
      And your purple shews your path ;
But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence
      Than the strong man in his wrath !"

Baylor University in the United States is a repository of the memorabilia of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. Visit Victorian Working-Class Poets: “May the Children Weep Before You” and “Rhyme and Reform” at Baylor’s website.

A film was made in 1912 based on the poem, provoking an outcry because of its use of real-life footage of children working inside a large textile factory.

EBB also wrote – controversially – of other controversial issues, such as race and slavery.

She is famous for her Sonnets from the Portuguese, and in particular, Sonnet 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Two Poems by Lyn Lifshin

Lyn Lifshin (1942-2019) was a prolific American poet who wrote of quiet moments, thoughts, and dreams. She was born in New England and kept the tradition of austerity threaded with longing – with passion often unspoken – of that region. Her poetry, however, differed from Frost and Dickinson in its modern apprehension and cheerful sensuality.

Black Sparrow Press, one of her publishers, wrote: Lyn was the author of more than 125 books and edited four anthologies of women writers. Throughout her life, she remained dedicated to the small presses which first published her. 

The first of these poems I read in Waterways, a literary magazine that’s been published for more than 35 years now. The poem was published in other “lit mags” as well.

She Said She Couldn’t See to Walk Easily

for Malala Yousafzai

In her long gray
drab berka.  Some
times it was hot.
It was as if she
wanted to bring
color, not the
source of the storm.
Wanted to walk
into life like it
was her house.  She
wanted to wear
pink because
it was her favorite
color.  There are
songs she wants
to sing.  She wants
to feel as if each
day could unravel
new mysteries.
She wants the school
to receive her in
quiet calmness the
way the lake
opens to receive
a flock of swans

Middlebury Poem

Milky summer nights,
the men stay waiting, First National Corner
where the traffic light used to be, wait

as they have all June evenings of their lives.
Lilac moss and lily of the valley
sprout in the cooling air as

Miss Damon, never late for thirty years,
hurries to unlock the library, still
hoping for a sudden man to spring tall from the

locked dark of mysterious card catalogues to
come brightening her long dusty shelves.
And halfway to dark

boys with vacation bicycles
whistle flat stones over the bridge,
longing for secret places where
rocks are blossoming girls with damp thighs.

Then nine o’clock falls thick on lonely books
and all the unclaimed fingers and
as men move home through bluemetal light,
the Congregational Church bells

ringing as always four minutes late,
the first hayload of summer rumbles through
town and all the people shut their eyes
dreaming a wish

Spring, Resurrection, Renewal, Immortality?

This fine poem by poet and scientist Rebecca Elson explores these themes which have accompanied our human journey for thousands of years. (Via “The Marginalian” blog by Maria Popova)

Ireland Forever

_{Brigid’s Cross}

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a bouquet of Irish poetry. Possibly the first known poem was by Amergin, a druid and bard accompanying the Milesians (sons of Mil) who were Gaels from south-eastern Europe before Christ, or so the story goes. They sailed from Spain and encountered the people of the goddess Danu. A challenge was set: if the Milesians stayed away for three days, the De Dananns would decide whether to retire, submit, or fight. Amergin decided the island was not the Milesians by right, and they should withdraw “over nine green waves” and if they could land again, the island would be theirs by right of conquest. At sea, the Milesian ships were hit by strong winds created by “the Druids and poets of Erinn. Their incantations raised so violent a storm that the vessels were driven westward and separated.”

Amergin countered with his own incantation, a poem with a strange rhyme sequence. “It is composed in “Conaclon,” the end word of one line rimes to the first word of the line following, and indeed the rime is sometimes secured by repeating the word.” Alliteration is also used.

Ailim iath n ereann, 
Ermac muir motach, 
Motach sliab sreatach 
Sreatach coill ciotach. 

FAIN we ask Erinn, 
Faring o'er ocean's 
Motions to mountains, 
Fountains and bowers 

(Visit this site for the entire poem and more about the Milesians and Amergin)

The incantation worked and the Milesians settled in Ireland. Amergin composed two “Songs of Triumph” in which he invoked the power and spirit of the natural world and his prowess.

"I, the poet, prophet, pray'rful, 
Weapons wield for warriors' slaying: 
Tell of triumph, laud forthcoming
Future fame in soaring story! 

Medieval Irish poetry survives in marginalia on manuscripts as they were worked on by monks and scribes. One of the most famous is “Pangur Bán,” a 9th Century poem about a monk and his cat. Seamus Heaney’s translation is one I like best. It begins with:

Pangur Bán and I at work, 
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk: 
His whole instinct is to hunt, 
Mine to free the meaning pent. 

(To read the whole poem, please visit Vox Populi)

Another Old Irish poem (blended with Latin) is The Scribe in the Woods.

‘Over me green branches hang 
A blackbird leads the loud song 
Above my pen-lined booklet 
I hear a fluting bird-throng 

The cuckoo pipes a clear call 
Its dun cloak hid in deep dell: 
Praise to God for his goodness 
That in woodland I write well’ 

(translated by Maire Mac Neill)

Modern Irish poets include Seamus Heaney, William Butler Yeats, and Eavan Boland. Boland’s “Mother Ireland” is on the Poetry Foundation website. And finally, “Sailing to Byzantium,” a poem about growing old by William Butler Yeats. The poet along with William and Elizabeth Sharp (author of Lyra Celtica) endeavored to keep alive the legacy of Irish poetry.

Viking Poetry: The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek

_{Lagertha, shieldmaiden, Morris Meredith Williams (1881-1973) – The Northmen in Britain (pub. 1913) by Eleanor Means Hull, p. 17}

In honor of the impressive showing of Norway, Sweden, and Germany in the Winter Games, I’m choosing Old Norse poems for this post. The storytelling style and the legends in these medieval poems influenced many writers, J. R. R. Tolkien among them. I think Shakespeare was aware of these poems and their legends as well.

One of the interesting differences between Anglo-Saxon and Old French poetry of the time was that skaldic poems were a common form of expression. They could be quite complex and obscure. Interpreting the poems may have been a kind of game, extended forms of today’s Wordle. “Skaldic … poetry seems to have been an almost universal activity among the Vikings, both as composers and audiences.” (1)

Though the Vikings in their pillaging and raiding phase were brutal, they also became adept at commerce and created lasting poetry and music. To enhance the mood, with a draught of mead if possible, here’s a Viking Song.

I’m including the poem about the shieldmaiden Hervör who asked her dead father to give her his magic sword. Of course, the sword was cursed.

According to Wikipedia, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek) is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas in Germanic heroic legend. It tells of wars between the Goths and the Huns during the 4th century.

Hervararkviða, (published in English translation as The Waking of Angantýr, or The Incantation of Hervor) is an Old Norse poem from the Hervarar saga, which is sometimes included in editions of the Poetic Edda.

Scholars at the University of Texas at Austin write (2):

The following selection is a poetical excerpt from Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks konungs. The diction of the poem is archaic, and some scholars have thought it to be the remnant of an earlier poetic form of the entire narrative, of which the saga we have is the distilled version.

The poem begins when Hervör arrives on the island Samsey to claim the sword Tyrfing from her dead father Angantýr. … Dwarfs created the sword Tyrfing for Svafrlami, but one laid a curse upon it: that it should bring death to the one who wielded it, that no wound it caused should ever heal, and that it should bring about three shameful deeds. These are of course played out to the letter in the ensuing story.

Angantýr’s posthumous daughter, when she came of age to learn her father’s identity and the cause of his death, set herself on the track toward vengeance. … This is where the poem picks up the story; from the end of the poem it is clear what Hervör’s next task will be, as she puts revenge before her own well-being in true heroic tradition.

In Munarvag at sunset the young maid
met a man at his flock.

The herdsman said:
‘Who has come alone to the island?
Go quickly to your lodging!’

Hervör said:
‘I cannot go to my lodging,
since I know none of the island inhabitants;
before you go from here, tell
where are Horvath’s burial mounds?’

The herdsman said:
‘Don’t ask about that, you are not wise,
friend of vikings, you’re in dire straits;
let us go as quickly as our feet will take us —
everything out here is harmful to men.’

Hervör said:
‘We offer you treasure as payment for the information;
it is not easy to dissuade the friend of warriors;
no one has ornaments handsome enough to me,
rings so fair, that I not go.’

The herdsman said:
‘Foolish he seems to me, who goes there,
a man totally alone, through dark night;
fire is in flight, the mounds lay open,
earth and bog are burning — let us go quickly!’

Hervör said:
‘Let us take care not to be frightened by such snorting,
though fires burn throughout the entire island!
Let’s not allow dead warriors
to quickly frighten us; we shall make conversation.’

At that moment the herdsman was headed
to the woods at the words of this maiden;
but Hervor’s heart, well-prepared
for such straits, swelled in her breast.

She then saw the grave fires and ghosts come out, and she went to the
mounds and was not frightened. She passed through the fires and smoke,
until she came to the mound of the berserkers. Then she said:

‘Wake, Angantýr! Hervör wakes you,
sole daughter of you and Tofa.
Give out from the grave your sharp sword,
which dwarfs hammered out for Svafrlami.

Hervarth, Hjorvarth, Hrani, Angantýr!
I wake you all below the tree’s roots,
with helmet and byrnie, with sharp sword,
with shield and harness, with reddened spear.

You, sons of Arngrim, violent kin,
have changed greatly for the heaping up of earth,
while none of the sons of Eyfura will
speak with me in Munarvag.

So be it for you all within your ribs,
as if you waste away in an ant hill,
unless you give the sword which Dvalin hammered;
it is not fitting for ghosts to hide the precious weapon.’

Then Angantýr answered:
‘Hervör, my daughter, why do you call out so,
filled with curses? It works to your disadvantage.
You have become mad and senseless;
delirious, you wake dead men!

A father did not bury me, nor other kin.
They held Tyrfing, the two who lived,
though at last only one became the owner.’

She said:
‘Tell it true: so the God should leave you
whole in the mound, if you do not have
Tyrfing with you! You are reluctant to give
the inheritance to your only child.’

Then it was as if a single flame was to be seen all around the graves,
which stood open. Then Angantýr said:

‘The door to hell is open, graves lie open,
all the island’s surface is seen to be on fire;
it is fearsome to behold all about.
Hasten, maiden, if you can, to your ships!’

She said:
‘You could not light fires in the night,
so that I am frightened by your flames;
the maiden’s thought-enclosure does not tremble,
though she see a ghost stand at the door.’

Then Angantýr said:
‘I tell you, Hervör, listen for the moment,
prince’s daughter, to what will be;
This Tyrfing will, if you can believe,
maiden, destroy your entire family.

You will have a son who will later
carry Tyrfing and trust his might;
People will call him Heithrek,
he will be born most magnificent under the sun’s pavilion.’

She said:
‘I lay a spell on dead men, so
that you shall all lie
dead with the ghosts, rotten in your grave;
Give, Angantýr, out from the grave
the dwarfs’ work! It is not fitting for you to hide it.’

He said:
‘I declare you, young maiden, unlike to men,
as you go from the mounds in the night
with an inlaid spear and the Goths’ metal,
with helmet and byrnie before the doors of the hall.’

She said:
‘I seemed man enough til the point
when I decided to seek your halls;
give up from your grave that which cuts mail,
that danger to shields, Hjalmar’s bane!’

Angantýr said:
‘Hjalmar’s bane lies beneath my shoulders,
it is wrapped all about by fire;
nowhere on earth do I know a maiden
such as would dare take this sword in hand.’

She said:
‘I might care for and take in hand
the sharp sword, if I could have it;
I do not fear burning fire —
at once the flame sinks as I look upon it.’

He said:
‘You are foolish, Hervör, but possessed of courage,
as you rush wide-eyed into the fire;
instead I will give the sword from out of the grave,
young maid, I cannot refuse.’

She said:
‘Well you did, viking kin,
as you gave me the sword from the grave;
I seem now, prince, to be better off,
than if I should possess all of Norway.’

He said:
‘You do not understand — you are hapless in your causes,
deceitful woman — what the celebration will be for;
This Tyrfing will, if you can believe,
maiden, destroy your entire family.’

She said:

‘I will go to my ocean-steeds;
now the prince’s maid is in good spirits;
little does that frighten me, princes’ kin,
how my sons contend hereafter.’

He said:
‘You shall have and enjoy it for a long time,
keep Hjalmar’s bane in the sheath,
do not touch the edges, poison is upon both;
it dispenses man’s fate worse by disease.

Fare well, daughter! Readily would I give you
the life of twelve men, if you could believe,
the strength and endurance, everything good,
which Arngrim’s sons left after them.’

She said:
‘Be you all — the journey calls me —
safe in the grave! I must quickly hence.
Now most of all I seemed between worlds,
as fires burned around me.’

(In the last sentence, I note that she is now speaking in the first person, taking control of her story.)

And here’s a modern Nordic Lullaby, The Wolf Song.

References:

(1) “Poetical Inspiration in Old Norse and Old English Poetry” by Anthony Faulkes, Professor of Old Icelandic in The University of Birmingham, November 1997, published for the College by The Viking Society for Northern Research.

(2) A. Richard Diebold Center for Indo-European Language and Culture, Linguistics Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin, Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum

Ekphrastic Poetry: Photos inspire Poems

An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning. Source: Poetry Foundation

American Daguerreotype: Ekphrastic Poems by James Penha

James Penha has penned a narrative that explores American character in the mid-1800s, a turbulent and pivotal time when new technologies of photography and communication revolutionized how we saw ourselves and shared information. He choses his subjects from a spectrum of income, education, and status of freedom. Writers Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Emily Dickinson, artist James McNeil Whistler, anti-slave activists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, are accompanied by a slave named Caesar (three poems spanning a century), a man whittling, a group of school children, and several others. Each daguerreotype has been given proper attribution, with its date, if known. And for each subject there is historical material, including writings by Poe, Hawthorne, and Douglass on the advent of the new technology. Douglass said, “Morse has brought the ends of the Earth together, and Daguerre has made it a picture gallery.” (“Pictures and Progress”, 1864)

In the poem accompanying Douglass’s portrait from the 1840s showing him looking to one side and gazing down, Penha writes:

... he looks aside of it, demanding
that we recollect and admire
his naked bondage 
but with eyes as well on the verge 
not merely of the mountain top 
but the view from its apex, vast and glorious expanse…

The poem ends with:

These miraculous pictures 
will be clasped, he knows 
in frames of truth and lies.

Edgar Allen Poe’s photograph was taken by an unknown artist, late May or early June 1849. Poe said of the new medium: “For, in truth, the Daguerreotyped plate is infinitely (we use the term advisedly) is infinitely more accurate in its representation than any painting by human hand. … The results of the invention cannot, even remotely, be seen – but all experience in matters of philosophical discovery, teaches us that, in such discovery, it is the unforeseen upon which we must calculate most largely. It is a theorem almost demonstrated, that the consequences of any new scientific invention will, at the present day exceed, by very much, the wildest expectations of the most imaginative.” Poe, “The Daguerreotype,” Alexander’s Weekly Messenger, 15 January 1840.

Penha imagines Poe realizing the camera’s power as the photo is being taken, as he bends to the left as if to escape being captured “accurately, infinitely…”

One of my favorites is the poem accompanying Henry David Thoreau’s photograph, taken in 1856 by Benjamin D. Maxham. In his poem, Penha notes the tousled hair, “so uncivil, So thoroughly disobedient, we must wonder if he tousled it on purpose for posterity.” The ending again, as with many of these poems, is excellent. (No spoiler.)

National Portrait Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps the most telling is the self-portrait by Robert Cornelius, believed to be earliest extant American portrait photo, circa 1839. The first “Selfie” evokes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s call to the ordinary man, to the “gleam of light” in each of us. Cornelius stares directly at the camera, daring the new power to echo his own. 

Grief Songs by Elizabeth Gauffreau

In a series of poems, Liz Gauffreau chronicles her family’s history, providing photographs that often both reveal and hide the truth. Her brother’s carefree teenage stance, posed family portraits, moments captured at gatherings, show life’s vivid impressions, but the poems inform us of the mischief, tantrums, and long-lasting bonds. The poems, in tanka format, add to the senses: sound, smell, taste, feel.

clam bake on the beach
driftwood fire crackles, smokes
Michael row the boat
Mummy sings, guitar strumming
five hundred miles from our home

In one she remembers a picnic on a beach, but years later she is the only survivor of that family scene. These poems and photographs mirror the resilience needed to move beyond grief to full appreciation of those we love.

Please also visit Annika Perry’s blog for her review.

Recently, I’ve been doing a photographic study of a bench outside my apartment building. Here’s one with an accompanying haiku.

Natural patterns
circle and bind, bonding us
and frees the world's grace

Sappho’s Poetry

_{Wikimedia Commons: Red-figure vase (hydria, or kalpis) by the Group of Polygnotos, ca. 440–430 BC. Seated, Sappho is reading one of her poems to a group of three student-friends. National Archaeological Museum in Athens, 1260.}

Sappho’s poetry exists only in fragments, except for one poem and about four others with missing pieces that are long enough to attempt reconstruction. Her work once filled at least four volumes and was disseminated around the ancient Mediterranean world. Homer, her predecessor, wrote epic poems of war in a poetic style (dactylic hexameter) that suited historical episodes, lists, and long speeches, while she wrote in her own style (Sapphic stanza) of the battles and triumphs of love.

Her poems were meant to be accompanied by a lyre, thus lyrical poetry, the words either spoken or sung. Each line contained syllables that were at different pitches. Today, modern stresses give each word a greater or lesser emphasis but do not indicate pitch. 

Sappho wrote at a time when heroic poems were being replaced by more personal ones. She included direct conversations in her poems. At times, she turned Homeric phrases around: rosy-fingered dawn became rosy-fingered sunset, and “black earth” created by armies was juxtaposed with fields of flowers.

Some say a cavalry corps,
some infantry, some, again,
will maintain that the swift oars

of our fleet are the finest
sight on dark earth; but I say
that whatever one loves, is.

This translation is by Mary Bernard, who didn’t keep to the four lines and meter but often communicated the poetic intent (IMHO).

42.

I have not heard one word from her
Frankly, I wish I were dead.

When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to
me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."

I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love.

Translation by William Harris, showing what is missing in the fragment:

I just really want to die.
She, crying many tears, left me
And said to me:
"Oh, how terribly we have suffered, we two,
Sappho, really I don't want to go away."
And I said to her this:
Go and be happy, remembering me,
For you know how we cared for you.
And if you don’t I want to remind you
.............and the lovely things we felt
with many wreathes of violets
and ro(ses and cro)cuses
and.............. and you sat next to me
and threw around your delicate neck
garlands fashioned of many woven flowers
and with much...............costly myrrh
..............and you anointed yourself with royal.....
and on soft couches.......(your) tender.......
fulfilled your longing..........

Wouldn’t be great to have this poem in its entirety? It’s about someone who has to go away, and how terribly (amazingly, wonderfully, deeply) we have felt, but we won’t forget each other. Memories are what we have, and hope.

Harris shows her alliteration in this stanza. It’s a wonder of the internet that we can see the Greek.

kai gar ai pheugei, taxeos dioxei
ai de dora me deket', alla dosei
ai de me philei, tacheos philesei
kouk etheloisa.

Translated:

And if she flees, soon will she follow,
And if she does not take gifts, she will give,
If she does not love, she will love
Despite herself"

Harris says about this stanza:

… each line shows a remarkable balance of structure, with a compelling progression toward Unity. First “pheugei/flee” is balanced by “dioxei/follow” where the Greek words have nothing in common phonetically. The next line speaks of Getting as opposed to Giving (in Greek deket’ and dosei) with clear initial alliteration of “-d-” (In English -g- ). But the third line uses the same actual verb stem: (philei/philesei meaning “love/will love”, bringing together the words as symbol for the bringing together of the two lovers. Very subtle and most effective because it doesn’t show right away, a sly effect suiting Sappho as the arch “weaver of wiles.”

Harris – Here is another delicate fragment with a celestial figure set against a very human backdrop:

hespere, panta pheron osa phainolis eskedas' auos
phereis oin, phereis aiga, phereis materi paida

Evening-star, bringing all things that morning dawn scattered
You bring back the sheep, you bring the goat,
you bring the child to its mother.

The Greek words especially in the last line are compact, repeated rhyme, so precise, it’s sublime.

_{Wikimedia Commons: Sappho holding a barbitos, from a Six technique kalpis c.510 BC by the Sappho painter. The vase is the earliest surviving depiction of Sappho. Now in the collection of National Museum of Warsaw. Drawing from D.M. Robinson’s Sappho and Her Influence, 1924.}

whiter than virgin snow in the sun
gentler than water stirring to the gentlest breeze
a voice that pleases as no lyre can
bearing grander than a proud mare’s
skin so fair no rose has petals more delicate
softer than the thickest fur
far more precious than the most precious metals

               This loving has burst into my head
as mountain wind falls into the crowns of oaks.

_{Copyright 1981 by Ulf Goebel translated with Dimitrios Moschopoulos}

I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit to the work of one of Western society’s oldest known poets.

References:

William Harris, Middlebury College: http://wayback.archive-it.org/6670/20161201174348/http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Translations/Sappho.html

Finding Sappho: https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/29/finding-sappho-four-translations-in-conversation/