Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images : : British Jesuit and Poet : Gerard Manley Hopkins ( 1844 – 1889 ) one of the greatest poets of the Victorian era but his style was so radically different from that of his contemporaries. His best poems were not accepted for publication during his lifetime, and his achievement was not fully recognized until after World War I. : Estranged from his Protestant family when he converted to Roman Catholicism. Upon deciding to become a priest, he burned all of his poems and did not write again for many years. His work was not published until 30 years after his death when his friend Robert Bridges edited the volume Poems. : The attitudes of Christina Rossetti and Hopkins toward art and religion have destined them to share much the same fate at the hands of twentieth-century readers. Like Hopkins, Christina Rossetti often reveals a Keatsian attraction to the life of sensations, especially to nature. Hopkins’s wide variety of responses to nature, especially in the 1860s and 1880s, ranging from strong attraction to its beauty to belief that this beauty must be denied on religious grounds, is congruent with the range of Christina Rossetti’s responses. Hopkins’s most famous Welsh sonnet, “The Windhover,” reveals for him the Book of Nature. : Hopkins was subject to melancholy all his life, but his “terrible pathos,” as Dixon called it. The sense of coldness, impotence, and wastefulness evident in Hopkins’s religious poetry of the 1860s is an important feature. Hopkins’s sonnets of desolation are generally considered his most modern poems. The ultimate result of God’s withdrawal from the soul and the consequent darkness is often the temptation to despair, that loss of all hope which is the state of the damned in Dante’s Inferno. This despair, the temptation resisted in the opening of Hopkins’s “Carrion Comfort,”: Eventually, Hopkins, like Dante, was granted a glimpse of Paradise. Hopkins’s sonnet of 1888, “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection,” is apparently a direct reply to “No worst, there is none”: the question in the earlier poem, “Comforter, where, where is your comforting?”: ”As Dante put it, “The inborn and perpetual thirst for the godlike kingdom bore us away…. It seemed to me that a cloud covered us, shining, dense, solid and smooth; like a diamond smit by the sun.”Hopkins concludes in his poem with similar imagery: “I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and / This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, /Is immortal diamond. : : ”I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day” is A Darkness Poem / of alarming black hours of insomnia discussed HERE In BELOW as A Sonnet :
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’ By Gerard Manley Hopkins : (1844 – 1889) : : :: I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse. Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see The lost are like this, and their scourge to be As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
— Gerard Manley Hopkins : From : Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985) : From : poetryfoundation.org : For Educational Purposes only.
“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day”Written in the 1880s while living in Ireland having a time in depression.. . Hence , A Darkness Poem By Gerard Manley Hopkins is About A Painful suffering in dark while understanding Part , persona and purpose of God in his partitive life ( less than the whole ). The Sonnet follows Consistent Rhyme of ABBAABBA CCDCCD. : : The “years like black hours spent” ( lines 2 & 6 ) because of his depression while all alone in soul searching 🔍 🔎 ‘sleepless night’ with a constant feeling in, “yet longer light’s delay”( line 4 ) : : Hopkins’s depression is related to his religious role as a Jesuit priest ; he feels as if his prayers have been going unanswered, like “cries countless, cries like dead letters sent To dearest” ( lines 7 & 8 ) which are returned as unopened. : His depression and unlikely consideration by the “dearest” / ‘God’ become oppressive sorrows pressing him like with “heartburn” as expressed in ( line 3 ) : “This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!” ( line 3 ) into the “blood brimmed curse “( line 11 ) . The Spirituality in his Jesuitical efforts in going near to God & with gaining His helping lights of His Heaven / Paradise with Biblical ways he continues to pray, will keep him ready to bear baking heat to turn out in to a Genuine Self Worthy Of Life. The “lost are like this , and their scourge to be ” ( line 13 ) inspires an inhospitable “worse life” for Others who are non – believers. The Poet Speaker sees that “scourge” of life of those Non – Believer’s “lost” souls are to be causing a dreadful misery and fear of ruining. Such lost souls will be “sweating 🥵 selves; ” : that is , they will face eternal yet “worse” ( punishment ) in the abode of Satanic Evil force of the darkness : a Hell of pain and turmoil with the blazing inferno. : : : :
Quatrain 1 : : ” I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. 1 What hours, O what black hours we have spent 2 This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! 3 And more must, in yet longer light’s delay” 4 : : lines 1 To 4 : : : :
About painful 😖 suffering 😣 during a sleepless night while all alone in the “dark” waiting for the light. The Poet Speaker addresses his own heart 💜 recalling a number of “sights” and “ways”/ places he and his heart have seen, as in the line, ” This night ! what sights you , heart ❤️ , saw ; ways you went ! ” ( line 3 ) Meaning , what has been done or how it happens to a place or point of conditions , ” And more must”( line 4 ) they have had passed through / “black hours we have spent ” ( line 2 ) which have proved dark way of his mind and dark emotions of his hearty internals. It has been like moving in an unilluminated area of deficient gloom and a sorry state of ” black hours” in “dark “, that is depression in ” yet longer light’s delay”( line 4 ) . That has been a day -in day- out for an indefinite number of succeeding day(s) / “mean life” ( line 6 ) when, “I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. 1 What hours, O what black hours we have spent” 2 : : He exclaims over the night 🌃 the “fell of dark” as if by delivering a blow, that has disposed to inflict pain and suffering 😣 😢 : : : :
Quatrain 2 : : “With witness I speak this. But where I say 5 Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament 6 Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent 7 To dearest him that lives alas! away.” 8 : : lines 5 To 8 : : : :
About A “lament” ( lah-mint ) that is an expression of grief as painful suffering of “years of life” which has provided in “countless cries”( line 7 ) : here a religious artist ( a Jesuit by vocation, and a Poet ) shed tears because of sadness and pain ( and not in protest or opposition ) : : It’s A lament ( lu’ment ) in grief and sorrow when we might plead God to help someone move through their grief or solve a Puzzle that we have. The Poet Speaker has lamented in this sense but all his “cries” have met with the same end ,”like dead letters sent” ( line 7 ) with his mindful and hearty prayers 🙏 To God and they remained unanswered in the sense he has always received his “letters” returned to him as unopened. He finds it and says, “Alas ! his dearest lives away.”( line 8 ): God has never responded with His Ray of Hope “light” : The Poet Speaker presents his personal religious jesuitical testimony to “years .. meaning life” ( line 6 ) of his lamented prayers as he says, ” “With witness I speak this. But where I say” ( line 5 ) 🙏🤲🙏 🤲 ! ! ! ! ( In following Octave.. . )
Octave : : ” I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree 9 Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; 10 Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse. 11 Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see 12 The lost are like this, and their scourge to be13 As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.” 14 : : lines 8 To 14 : : : :
About “heartburn” ( line 9 ) state of intense resentment : A heartburning sensation which irks the Poet Speaker who says, “I am gall”( line 9 ) , Meaning , he is feeling a bitter anger 🤬 and “ill will” his self accepted ‘priestly ordain’ : God’s most deep decree” ( line 9 ) : A binding command viewed as coming from God. : The angry bitterness in his self has admitted that since he has not been shown a ray of light he wished in his lifelong prayers he is now an unblessed soul in suffering. Therefore , he is unsaved and damned with severity of some punishment. He is burdened with his blameworthiness that has gone through all his body as said in line ,” Bones built in me , flesh filled , blood brimmed the curse. ” ( line 11 ) ❣️ ❣️ Meaning , His all body is completely filled with resentment and the angry bitterness with his self. : : It is filled as much as possible to become a dull lump of bone and flesh : A “sour dough” fermented with “Selfyeast of spirit” an intensifier, a fermenter as exemplified in ( line 12 ) : : Hence , he says, “I see” what he will say in turn of Volta , The last Two lines of the Sonnet. : : : :
VOLTA : : “The lost are like this, and their scourge to be 13 As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.” 14 : : lines 13 & 14 : : : :
About The Believer’s / Jesuitical Religiosity V/S Non – Believers – the Others. The Poet Speaker’s ” mine” has to still have a FAITH In HIM : The God Almighty , sees his painful darkness will not be doomed , whereas Others / Non – Believers are “lost “souls in their own darkness, as he sees. : His Selfyeast of spirit, that is , his spirituality in his efforts of goingnear to God & His Heaven / Paradise with whatever ways he continues to pray will keep him ready to bear the heat of baking to turn him out in to a GenuineSelfworthyfor Life.: ( An identifiable memory of An EATABLE BREAD of last supper !? ) ; Whereas the “scourge” of life of those Non – Believer’s “lost” souls are to be causing a dreadful misery and fear of ruining. Such lost souls will be “sweating 🥵 selves; ” : that is , they will face eternal yet “worse” punishment ( in the abode of Satanic Evil force ) of the darkness which is A Hell of pain andturmoil with the blazinginferno. : : ( May be noted that In Christianity , A Hell is paved with good intentions. ) : : : :
“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day” , A Darkness Poem By Gerard Manley Hopkins Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India August 23 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
The Dark Forest : : By Edward Thomas ( 1878-1917 ) London , England : : : : : : :
Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead Hang stars like seeds of light 2 In vain, though not since they were sown was bred Anything more bright.4
And evermore mighty multitudes ride About, nor enter in; 6 Of the other multitudes that dwell inside Never yet was one seen. 8
The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite Outside is gold and white, 10 Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet The others, day or night. 12
— Edward Thomas
“The Dark Forest “A 12 lines in 3 Quatrains / Stanzas ( in simple rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF ), ‘Darkness Poem’ By A Nature Poet Edward Thomas is About “The forest” at night, above whose “overhead , that is , deep(ness) of trees , “hang stars”which shine like “seeds of light”. Through whatever that occupies all around , and throughout Thomas depicts the disconnexion that split up the living from the dead.. . One group , the living picks marguerite flowers in the light/day while the others pick purple foxglove in the deep, darkness of the forest. The distinguished life and death is also located through the Starlight in the sky. : : Life in the dark forest mirrors life in the light. The “mighty multitudes” on both sides sustain without disturbance or interference as said in the line, “ride about not enter in;”( line 6 ) for their inability to reach across or enter into the side they don’t belong to which is understood in ” Never yet was one seen” ( line 8 ) : : “The forest foxglove is purple, the Marguerite / Outside is gold and white”, are the most haunting lines 9 & 10 : : : :
Quatrain 1 : : ” Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead 1 Hang stars like seeds of light 2 In vain, though not since they were sown was bred3 Anything more bright. 4 : : lines 1 To 4 : : : :
About The stars like “seeds of light” in the sky as they look tiny from a distance , not that their breed was tiny : “not since they were sown was bred ” ( line 3 ) : Under any circumstances, ( for ) “Anything”( they look ) more bright” ( line 4 ) : : Thus , The tiny looking distant and hanging yet very bright 🤩 ⭐✨ Stars are Vibrantly Shining with full of 🧬 life. Hence a very fine simile : ” seeds of life” : : The seeds were “sown.. In vain”( line 5 ) because nothing brighter or more lively has been born since their planting / breeding. And nothing “more bright” has been engendered or begotten from the stars. : : : :
Quatrain2 : : ” And evermore mighty multitudes ride 5 About, nor enter in; 6 Of the other multitudes that dwell inside 7 Never yet was one seen. ” 8 : : lines 5 To 8 : :::
About “Death”meaningfully implied in lines “nor enter in; 6 Of the other multitudes that dwell inside 7 Never yet was one seen. ” 8 : ( lines 6 , 7 & 8 ) : : This refers to those who have entered into the woods, or death, and are never seen again by those outside. : The inside and outside are the two different metaphorical “multitudes”/ ‘large gathering of People’ distinguished in the sides of life and of death. The dark deep forest is thick / impenetrable. In the 1 St World War in which Thomas also took part going to the front line of war(s) : Many People belonging to One battalion / multitude at the front “ was never seen”: May be , Thomas wanted to pinpoint at them but not clearly.. . He has changed this expression as ,”Never yet was one seen. “In line 8 : : : :
Quatrain 3 : : ” The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite 9 Outside is gold and white, 10 Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet 11 The others, day or night. 12: : lines 9 To 12 : :::
About The Two distinguished World of living People and the dead People. They both reflect similarities. : Outside the forest, there are “gold and white” marguerite flowers while inside there is purple foxglove. They are unable to go from one side to another side. There is no crossover pathway existing in the impenetrable woods. Just as one flower can’t grow on the side it doesn’t belong to, people can’t “pluck either blossom 🌸 greet” ( line 11 ) . : “The others, day or night”( line 12 ) . The living and the dead remain distinct. The lines 9 & 10 are the most haunting lines. : The “foxglove”inside are the plants of the genus ,’Digitalis’ , here the variety of purple flowers 💜 ; whereas , “Marguerite” outside is white flowers ( of the tall plant of the genus Chrysanthemum , for instance moon Daisy or whiteDaisy ) : : : :
“The Dark Forest” , A Darkness Poem By Edward Thomas , Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India August 22 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
Joseph Campbell ( 15 July 1879 Belfast, Ireland– 6 June 1944 ( aged 64) Lacken Daragh, Enniskerry ) was an Irish poet and lyricist. He wrote under the Gaelic form of his name Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil (also Seosamh MacCathmhaoil) Campbell being a common anglicization of the old Irish name MacCathmhaoil. He is now remembered best for words he supplied to traditional airs, such as “My Lagan Love” and “Gartan Mother’s Lullaby”; his verse was also set to music by Arnold Bax and Ivor Gurney. Later in the Irish Civil War he was on the Republican side, and was interned in 1922/3 and he emigrated to the United States in 1925. There he lived in New York City. He lectured at Fordham University, and worked in academic Irish studies, founding the University’s School of Irish Studies in 1928, : : Campbell returned to Ireland in 1939, settling at Glencree, County Wicklow, and dying at Lacken Daragh, Enniskerry on 6 June 1944. The North Fork of the Big Hole River snakes out of the mountains and through the wide valley. NPS photoa star shine in the boghole – A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light. I look at it, and pass on.
Darkness : : By Joseph Campbell : (1879-1944)
Darkness. I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole – A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light. I look at it, and pass on.
The Dawn Whiteness : : By Joseph Campbell : ( 1879 – 1944 ) : : : : : : : :
The dawn whiteness. A bank of slate-grey cloud lying heavily over it. The moon, like a hunted thing, dropping into the cloud.
” Darkness” A 3 lines Very Short Poem taken from Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil ( Gaelic name of Joseph Campbell ), The Mountainy Singer (Dublin: Maunsel and Company, 1909). By An Irish Poet And One of the pioneer of modernist Poems ( that reject the excessive utterances of praise/ decoration of the Victorian Poetry ) , Joseph Campbell ( 1879 – 1944 ) is About “a star shine in the boghole – ” which is a hole or depression ( in a land surface having a miry or spongy bottom ) wherefrom a star emerging or going forth becomes apparently becomes visible and here , it has been looked upon by the Poet Speaker who has stopped there at that time.. makes an observational remark : ” A star no longer but a Silve ribbon of light. ( We know that “Ribbons” are used to decorate the box of gifts / Sweets , etc. ) : : This depiction drawn resembles a long thin line of bright looking glowing white lustre that decorates the darkness already set in the atmosphere. The long thin light like a ribbon of light is not the lights emitted by a star emerging in the sky. But the lights lined with the edges of a boghole wherein the Poet has stopped to watch the starlight from the valley’s depression on the surrounding land at the higher plane . This elongated strip of lights are the remains of the reflected lights of the last sunrays of the Sunset upon the body of clouds etc. that will remain in the atmosphere of the skyward airs of the earth. ( See this in the picture posted on the top. : : Compare this lights in darkness with the “dawn whiteness” , another Short Poem written by Joseph Campbell. : : : :
“Darkness”, A Darkness Poem By an Irish Poet Joseph Campbell Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India August 21 , 2023 : : : :
Photo by Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images : : Robert Frost ( b. in San Francisco 1874 – 1963 ) Frost’s ancestors were originally New Englanders, and Frost became famous for his poetry’s engagement with New England locales, identities, and themes. The New York “Independent” accepted his poem entitled “My Butterfly,” launching his status as a professional poet in 1894 : 2 years after his school graduation: with a check for $15.00. : : Frost’s first book was published around the age of 40, but he would go on to win a record four Pulitzer Prizes and become the most famous poet of his time, before his death at the age of 88. : : Frost sporadically attended Dartmouth and Harvard and earned a living teaching school and, later, working a farm in Derry, New Hampshire. : On his 75th birthday, the US Senate passed a resolution in his honor which said, “His poems have helped to guide American thought and humor and wisdom, setting forth to our minds a reliable representation of ourselves and of all men.” In 1955, the State of Vermont named a mountain after him in Ripton, the town of his legal residence; and at the presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961, Frost was given the unprecedented honor of being asked to read a poem. Frost wrote a poem called “Dedication” for the occasion, but could not read it given the day’s harsh sunlight. He instead recited “The Gift Outright,” which Kennedy had originally asked him to read, : Mountain Interval marked Frost’s turn to another kind of poem, a brief meditation sparked by an object, person or event. : Frost’s work of New Hampshire (1923) won his first Pulitzer Prize. : “Fire and Ice,” for example, one of the better known epigrams, speculates on the means by which the world will end. : Frost’s most famous and, according to J. McBride Dabbs, most perfect lyric, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” conveying “the insistent whisper of death at the heart of life,” the poem portrays a speaker who stops his sleigh in the midst of a snowy woods only to be called from the inviting gloom by the recollection of practical duties. Frost himself said of this poem that it is the kind he’d like to print on one page followed with “forty pages of footnotes.” : West-Running Brook (1928), Frost’s fifth book of poems, is divided into six sections, one of which is taken up entirely by the title poem. : A Further Range (1936), which earned Frost another Pulitzer Prize and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, contains two groups of poems subtitled “Taken Doubly”didactic, though there are humorous and satiric pieces as well. Included here is “Two Tramps in, and “Taken Singly.: : ”‘Well-here is a man of my country.’”: Most critics acknowledge that Frost’s poetry in the 1940s and ’50s grew more and more abstract, cryptic, and even sententious. : His politics and religious faith, hitherto informed by skepticism and local color, became more and more the guiding principles of his work. : His public figure, in the years before his death, much of his poetry was written from this stance. : Reviewing A Witness Tree (1942) in Books, Wilbert Snow noted a few poems “which have a right to stand with the best things he has written”. Stephen Vincent Benet felt that Frost had “never written any better poems than some of those in this book.”: In October, 1963, President John F. Kennedy paid honor in his speech calling Frost’s work to the deepest source of our national strength. Frost believed that poetry should be as the first form of understanding by the whole world. : James M. Cox wrote, “it is difficult to place him in the main tradition of modern poetry.”: Frost stands at the crossroads of 19th-century American poetry and modernism, for in his verse may be found the culmination of many 19th-century tendencies and traditions as well as parallels to the works of his 20th-century contemporaries. Taking his symbols from the public domain, Frost developed, as many critics note, an original, modern idiom and a sense of directness and economy that reflect the imagism of Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell. : Leonard Unger and William Van O’Connor point out in Poems for Study, “Frost’s poetry, unlike that of such contemporaries as Eliot, Stevens, and the later Yeats, shows no marked departure from the poetic practices of the nineteenth century.” : Frost also upheld T.S. Eliot’s idea that the man who suffers and the artist who creates are totally separate.: He maintained that “the freshness of a poem belongs absolutely to its not having been thought out and then set to verse as the verse in turn might be set to music.” He believed, rather, that the poem’s particular mood dictated or determined the poet’s “first commitment to metre and length of line.” : To critic M.L. Rosenthal, Frost’s pastoral quality, his “lyrical and realistic repossession of the rural and ‘natural,’” is the staple of his reputation. : Marion Montgomery has explained, “His attitude toward nature is one of armed and amicable truce and mutual respect interspersed with crossings of the boundaries” between individual man and natural forces. : Frost in “Education by Poetry” explained: “Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, ‘grace’ metaphors, and goes on to the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. … Unless you are at home in the metaphor, unless you have had your proper poetical education in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere.” ( This Write Up is based on the long Article on Frost from poetry foundation.) Frost’s Most FamousPoems include , ‘Mending Wall’ about the human race’s primitive urge to ‘mark its territory’ and our fondness for setting clear boundaries for our houses and gardens.: ‘Stopping by Woods’ was inspired by a real event in Frost’s life. : ‘Birches’ draws on Robert Frost’s childhood memories of swinging on birch trees as a boy, bent because a boy has been swinging on them. hinting at the adult’s vain yearning to return to childhood and live his life over again.: ‘Trees at my Window ‘ ,a simple observation of nature that then prompts a deeper meditation.He doesn’t like to draw the curtain across the window to block out the tree. : ‘fire and ice’ , fire suggests rage, war, passion; ice suggests cold indifference and passivity –: ‘mowing’, the grass with a scythe which is ‘the sweetest dream that labor knows’ – ‘whispers’ as it performs its work. :– ‘Desert Places’ thinks deeply upon the deeper isolation and desertion felt by human beings. : ‘Christmas trees’ city trader wants buy it , but country man finds its importance on getting an offer. : ‘The Road Not Taken’,his finest poem in understandable manner on individualism of one’s own bittersweet history. : :
Acquainted with the Night BY ROBERT FROST I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky
“Acquainted With The Night”published in 1928 , A 14 lines sonnet like ( with a terza rima (“third rhyme”) rhyme scheme, which follows the complex pattern of: ABA BCB CDC DAD AA ) Darkness Poem By Robert Frost is About an exploration of isolation, sorrow, and despair—the inescapable emotions during the night itself which are a universal part of the human experience. The poem reflects an empty feeling of loneliness and being surrounded by darkness. The rhyme in stanza one, ending with “acquainted.. . night”( line 1 ) and furthest city light ( line 3 ) . Frost sees depression and isolation in the darkness and reveals that isolating yourself from people and your feelings can cause depression and loneliness, leading to a life of unhappiness. : Such Metaphorical Experience can be passed by, as someone has been one acquainted with night, walked out and back in rain, and out walked light. : The Night is an extended metaphor for depression : the narrator has been acquainted with depression, in deeper sense. Each episode can be individualised Metaphor for depression. When Frost outwalks the city lights, it’s another Metaphor for Depression.
Notes for each of the 14 lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India August 20 , 2013 : : : :
Emily Dickinson : ( 1830–1886 ) Photo by Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesAmerica’s greatest and most original poets of all time. She took definition as her province and challenged the existing definitions of poetry and the poet’s work. Like writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, she experimented with expression in order to free it from conventional restraints. Like writers such as Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. she crafted a new type of persona for the first person. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, like those in Brontë’s and Browning’s works, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. Emily Dickinson died in Amherst in 1886. After her death her family members found her hand-sewn books, or “fascicles.” These fascicles contained nearly 1,800 poems. Though Mabel Loomis Todd and Higginson published the first selection of her poems in 1890, a complete volume did not appear until 1955. : : In her poetry Dickinson set herself the double-edged task of definition. Her poems frequently identify themselves as definitions: “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” “Renunciation—is a piercing Virtue,” “Remorse—is Memory—awake,” or “Eden is that old fashioned House.” As these examples illustrate, Dickinsonian definition is inseparable from metaphor. The statement that says “is” is invariably the statement that articulates a comparison. “We see—Comparatively,” Dickinson wrote, and her poems demonstrate that assertion. In the world of her poetry, definition proceeds via comparison.In this world of comparison, extremes are powerful. ( Above Write Up is based on a long Article About Dickinson from poetryfoundation.org ) Business woman holding light bulb on the desk and using computer : : stock photo… : : : : : “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.”
“In the midst of darkness, light persists.”
These quotes, from Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King point out the way darkness and light are used as metaphors in literature: with darkness suggesting ignorance, evil and unhappiness and light signifying knowledge, purity and happiness. : : Compare this ideas with what Emily Dickinson , An American Poet reveals about darkness and light she views in facing their situations. Beautiful Girl in dark illuminated by blue and red lights: dignified and sombre in serious manner A portrait of a beautiful woman lit by neon colored lights. : : “We grow accustomed to the Dark -” ( Emily Dickinson ) We adjust to the unknown / undisclosed experience of darkness ahead as well as to the levels of lights appearing or disappearing. “The neighborhood lamp”may it be a decorative part of her celebration, at the most , is up to show us light in our way to home and we understandably do not view her “Saying bye – bye farewell”, She doesn’t have intended to alert us or showing any fear, Here, our adjusting view differently to the lights of her lamps shown and which she might put away too ; in that case should it be as “To witness her Goodbye – !? ”
We Grow Accustomed To The Dark : : By Emily Dickinson : Amherst / Massachusett : :
We grow accustomed to the Dark – When light is put away – As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye –
A Moment – We uncertain step For newness of the night – Then – fit our Vision to the Dark – And meet the Road – erect –
And so of larger – Darknesses – Those Evenings of the Brain – When not a Moon disclose a sign – Or Star – come out – within –
The Bravest – grope a little – And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead – But as they learn to see –
Either the Darkness alters – Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight – And Life steps almost straight.
— Emily Dickinson
“We Grow Accustomed To The Dark” By American Poet Emily Dickinson( 1830 – 1886 ) is About the human capacity and adjustment for survival and recovery after a set – back in the face of losing position . The life of affliction and precarious uncertainty which is stumbling around in the dark until one’s eyes adjust to the lack of light / or guidance. : : Darkness is serving as an extended metaphor of the unknown; not even the light from the moon or the stars are around to help out. The “bravest” bold people venture in the dark without a fear to face it. : : Thus the darkness is the uncertainty of life of unavoidable hardships. : : In another Poem , “Acquainted with the Night” written by American Legendary Poet Robert Frost has depicted darkness to symbolize as with man’s depression. : : The “road” in line 8 is serving as a metaphor of the future. : : The “Tree” in line 14 , is serving as a metaphor of the obstacles / and hardships : Affliction and precarious uncertainty of life on our way ; The obstacles can be emotional or physical, what matters is that some bravest people venture out in the dark and fight against the fears and sets their life upright moving on to the right way, the “road”. : : : :
The Speaker isn’t just talking about what literally happens to our eyes when exposed to different levels of light. She’s talking about how we adjust emotionally to events. The way our eyes adjust to the various levels of darkness is like our minds adapt to the inhospitable ways of life we face and live and in its extreme level of desolation , like our calm , lengthy and thoughtful consideration of the ‘night’ we experience that is a deathlike pallor ( pa-lu : dark as viewed from sickness or emotional distress ) : : : :
Stanza 1 : : ” We grow accustomed to the Dark – 1 When light is put away –2 As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp3 To witness her Goodbye – “4: :lines 1 To 4 : : : :
About Our eyes facing the different levels of light including its absence occuring suddenly. that is how the vision will adjust to the darkness : “When light is put away-” ( line 2 ) : : “The neighbor holding the lamp”( line 3 ) is up to show us light in our way to home and we understandably do not view her ‘Saying bye – bye farewell’, She doesn’t have intended to alert us or showing any fear, The Speaker talks here of our adjusting view differently to the light of her lamp shown and then put away as “To witness her Goodbye – ” ( line 4 ) : : We get used to The light disappearing in our ways. The adaptation to environmental conditions is one thing and becoming suitable to the fitting circumstances is another act of adjustment. The emphasis is on man’s emotional capacity which always tries adjustment and readjustments ( also in our worldviews ) to the events , the circumstances and situational settings. : : : :
Stanza 2 : : “A Moment – We uncertain step 5 For newness of the night –6 Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –7 And meet the Road – erect -” 8 : : lines 5 To 8 ::
About Our momentary hesitations. Once the light is gone, “we step uncertainly , For newness of the night-” ( line 6 ) The darkness of the night found will be adjusted fitting our Vision to the dark -” ( line 7 ) and “we meet the Road – erect” ( line 8 ) , that is ‘upright’ to cause rise up and leave without any fuss / worry. : : : :
Stanza 3 : : ” And so of larger – Darknesses – 9 Those Evenings of the Brain – 10 When not a Moon disclose a sign –11 Or Star – come out – within – ” 12 : : lines 9 To 12 : : : :
About The ” larger – Darkness -” ( line 9 ) of difficult times in life with bigger challenge which is announced here as , ” Those Evenings of the Brain – ” ( line 10 ) , Meaning, Those dark nights of the mind / the seat of reasoning behind a Brain that is facing crises in its wandering in the dark When no guiding light that of a “Moon” ( line 11 ) Or stars” – come out – within -” ( line 12 ) “disclose a sign ” ( line 11 ) , that will uncover it’s ‘eventide’ : decreasing day light until nightfall / as well as the mental capacity for our thoughts , feelings and conscious. : : : :
Stanza 4 : : ” The Bravest – grope a little – 13 And sometimes hit a Tree 14 Directly in the Forehead – 15 But as they learn to see – ” 16 : : lines 13 To 16 : : : :
About The Bravest / bold and spirited People who ” grope a little” ( lines 13 & 14 ) , Meaning , such courageous People search blindly and uncertainly and fumble in the darkness “sometimes hit a Tree ” ( line 14 ) , ” Directly in the forehead – ” ( line 15 ) Their venture has remained showy for a while they may draw back as with fear or pain . But , ” they learn to see- ” ( line 16 ).. . through the dark .. . : : : :
Stanza 5 : : ” Either the Darkness alters –17 Or something in the sight 18 Adjusts itself to Midnight – 19 And Life steps almost straight. ” 20 : : lines 17 To 20 : : : :
About the process of man’s adjustment to Darkness / Midnight and Winning Finally. “Either the darkness” itself changes , ” “alters” ( line 17 ) —Or, our eyes / vision Or Worldviews “/ ” in the sight” ( line 18 ) adjust(s) to Metaphorical “Midnight” ( line 19 ) Then “Life” in a way “steps almost straight” ( line 20 ) Here ” steps” are symbolic of the well intended future. : : Meaning the course of our actions has to be made as part of progress toward a goal . A ‘candidly walking’ will succeed to reach a place in a newly found and adjusted manner , in a forthright firm way. : : : :
That is the way how “We Grow Accustomed To The Dark” , A Darkness Poem By Emily Dickinson Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India August 19 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” : : By Robert Browning( 1812 – 1889 ) : : : : Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908 ) A Victorian Anthology , ( 1837 – 1895 ) , 1895 : : : : : : : : : : : :
MY first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that purs’d and scor’d
Its edge, at one more victim gain’d thereby.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guess’d what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch ’gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,
If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed: neither pride
Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,
So much as gladness that some end might be.
For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What with my search drawn out thro’ years, my hope
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
With that obstreperous joy success would bring,—
I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring
My heart made, finding failure in its scope.
As when a sick man very near to death
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end
The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,
And hears one bid the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside, (“since all is o’er,” he saith,
“And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;”)
While some discuss if near the other graves
Be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves and staves,
And still the man hears all, and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.
Thus, I had so long suffer’d, in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
So many times among “The Band”—to wit,
The knights who to the Dark Tower’s search address’d
Their steps—that just to fail as they, seem’d best.
And all the doubt was now—should I be fit?
So, quiet as despair, I turn’d from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
Into the path the pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.
For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O’er the safe road, ’t was gone; gray plain all round:
Nothing but plain to the horizon’s bound.
I might go on; nought else remain’d to do.
So, on I went. I think I never saw
Such starv’d ignoble nature; nothing throve:
For flowers—as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle, spurge, according to their law
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,
You ’d think; a burr had been a treasure trove.
No! penury, inertness and grimace,
In the strange sort, were the land’s portion. “See
Or shut your eyes,” said Nature peevishly,
“It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
’T is the Last Judgment’s fire must cure this place,
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.”
If there push’d any ragged thistle=stalk
Above its mates, the head was chopp’d; the bents
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents
In the dock’s harsh swarth leaves, bruis’d as to baulk
All hope of greenness? ’T is a brute must walk
Pashing their life out, with a brute’s intents.
As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair
In leprosy; thin dry blades prick’d the mud
Which underneath look’d kneaded up with blood.
One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupefied, however he came there:
Thrust out past service from the devil’s stud!
Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
With that red, gaunt and collop’d neck a-strain,
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;
Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.
I shut my eyes and turn’d them on my heart.
As a man calls for wine before he fights,
I ask’d one draught of earlier, happier sights,
Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards—the soldier’s art:
One taste of the old time sets all to rights.
Not it! I fancied Cuthbert’s reddening face
Beneath its garniture of curly gold,
Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold
An arm in mine to fix me to the place,
That way he us’d. Alas, one night’s disgrace!
Out went my heart’s new fire and left it cold.
Giles then, the soul of honor—there he stands
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.
What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.
Good—but the scene shifts—faugh! what hangman hands
Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!
Better this present than a past like that;
Back therefore to my darkening path again!
No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.
Will the night send a howlet of a bat?
I asked: when something on the dismal flat
Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.
A sudden little river cross’d my path
As unexpected as a serpent comes.
No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;
This, as it froth’d by, might have been a bath
For the fiend’s glowing hoof—to see the wrath
Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.
So petty yet so spiteful All along,
Low scrubby alders kneel’d down over it;
Drench’d willows flung them headlong in a fit
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:
The river which had done them all the wrong,
Whate’er that was, roll’d by, deterr’d no whit.
Which, while I forded,—good saints, how I fear’d
To set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek,
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!
—It may have been a water-rat I spear’d,
But, ugh! it sounded like a baby’s shriek.
Glad was I when I reach’d the other bank.
Now for a better country. Vain presage!
Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage
Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank
Soil to a plash? Toads in a poison’d tank,
Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage—
The fight must so have seem’d in that fell cirque.
What penn’d them there, with all the plain to choose?
No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,
None out of it. Mad brewage set to work
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk
Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.
And more than that—a furlong on—why, there!
What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,
Or brake, not wheel—that harrow fit to reel
Men’s bodies out like silk? with all the air
Of Tophet’s tool, on earth left unaware,
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.
Then came a bit of stubb’d ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes and off he goes!) within a rood—
Bog, clay, and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.
Now blotches rankling, color’d gay and grim,
Now patches where some leanness of the soil’s
Broke into moss or substances like thus;
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
And just as far as ever from the end,
Nought in the distance but the evening, nought
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon’s bosom-friend,
Sail’d past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penn’d
That brush’d my cap—perchance the guide I sought.
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains—with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surpris’d me,—solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.
Yet half I seem’d to recognize some trick
Of mischief happen’d to me, God knows when—
In a bad perhaps. Here ended, then,
Progress this way. When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts—you ’re inside the den.
Burningly it came on me all at once,
This was the place! those two hills on the right,
Couch’d like two bulls lock’d horn in horn in fight,
While, to the left, a tall scalp’d mountain … Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight!
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool’s heart,
Built of brown stone, without a counter-part
In the whole world. The tempest’s mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start.
Not see? because of night perhaps?—Why, day
Came back again for that! before it left,
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,—
“Now stab and end the creature—to the heft!”
Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it toll’d
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers my peers,—
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knell’d the woe of years.
There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.” — Robert Browning
“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” 34 , 6 -line Stanzas with the rhyme scheme ABBAAB, using iambic pentameter throughout In A narrative poem written on January 2, 1852, by English author Robert Browning ( 1812 – 1889 ) is About dark and atmospheric imagery, inversion of classical tropes and unreliable narration. Childe Roland, the only speaker in the poem, describes his journey towards “the Dark Tower”, and his horror at what he sees on his quest. The poem ends when Roland finally reaches the tower, leaving his ultimate fate ambiguous. “Childe Roland” has served as inspiration to a number of popular works of fiction , and other works of Novelists , Dramas , Etc. : :
The title, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, which forms the last words of the poem, is a line from William Shakespeare’s play King Lear (ca. 1607): : which is as HERE In BELOW : : In the play, Gloucester’s son, Edgar, lends credence to his disguise as Tom o’ Bedlam by talking nonsense, of which this is a part:
Child Rowland to the dark tower came. His word was still “Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.”
— King Lear, act 3, scene 4, lines 195-197
A “Childe” in this context is the eldest son of a nobleman who has not yet attained knighthood, or who has not yet “won his spurs”. It has been proposed that Browning also took inspiration from the 11th-century epic poem The Song of Roland, which features Roland, Charlemagne’s loyal paladin, blowing his hunting horn ( as Childe Roland also does at the end of the poem ) to call for help before he dies.Browning claimed that the poem came to him in a dream, saying “I was conscious of no allegorical intention of writing it … Childe Roland came upon me as a kind of dream. I had to write it then and there, and I finished it the same day, I believe. I do not know what I meant beyond that, and I do not know now. But I am very fond of it.” : : It is filled with images from nightmare, but the setting is given unusual reality by much fuller descriptions of the landscape. : : Many complex visual motifs are woven throughout the poem, including images of disease and deformity, as well as fire (connected with redness and death), eyes (both seeing and blinded), the idea of being suddenly trapped, and destroyed plant life : : The setting of Childe Roland is nightmarish and hallucinatory in nature, and seems to act as a sort of mirror to Roland’s psyche throughout the poem. Catharine Blass writes:
“Roland participates in a seemingly endless, futile quest deep into a landscape that he can never be certain exists outside of his own mind. He is unable to rely fully on his senses to determine his place or direction, which leaves him in mental and emotional agony : : His sight proves unreliable since these supposedly concrete, observable images … move in and out of his consciousness. His ‘seeing’ of these figures occurs, in part, within his own mind, and is inseparable from his conscious thoughts. : : William Lyon Phelps proposes three different interpretations of the poem: In the first two, the Tower is a symbol of a knightly quest. Success only comes through failure or the end is the realization of futility. In his third interpretation, the Tower is simply damnation.
For Margaret Atwood, Childe Roland is Browning himself, his quest is to write this poem, and the Dark Tower contains that which Roland/Browning fears most. : : Harold Bloom reads the poem as a “loving critique” of Shelley, and describes Roland as questing for his own failure. : :
A footnote in the Penguin Classics edition (Robert Browning Selected Poems) advises against allegorical interpretation, saying “readers who wish to try their hand should be warned that the enterprise strongly resembles carving a statue out of fog.” : : This sentiment is echoed by many critics, who believe any quest for interpretation will ultimately fail, due to the dreamlike, illusionary nature of the poem. : : : :
The poem opens with Roland’s suspicion about the truthfulness of a “hoary” crippled man with “malicious eye”, whose advice he nevertheless follows by choosing to turn off the thoroughfare into an ‘ominous tract’ that leads to the Dark Tower. The gloomy, cynical Roland describes how he had been searching for the tower for so long that he could barely feel any joy at finally finding the pathway to it, just a grim hope “that some end might be”. Roland describes himself as being like “a sick man very near to death” whose friends have all abandoned him, as Roland had always been dismissed as a member of “The Band”—a group of knights searching for the Dark Tower, all of whom had failed in their quest. Despite that, all Roland wants is to join The Band, whatever the cost.
As soon as he steps into the path towards the Dark Tower, the landscape around him shifts, and Roland finds himself completely alone in a featureless wasteland. Wandering onwards, he describes the desolate conditions with increasing despair, until he finds the emaciated body of a horse. Roland is disgusted by its appearance, saying “I never saw a brute I hated so; / He must be wicked to deserve such pain.”
In an attempt to regain some semblance of strength after the trauma of his surroundings, Roland tries to remember happier times, and thinks back on his old friends. The memory of his friends and fellow knights Cuthbert and Giles bring him comfort, but he then remembers the downfall of each of them (Cuthbert by “one night’s disgrace”, and Giles by being hanged and declared a traitor by his friends), and his heart is shattered all over again.
Declaring “better this present than a past like that”, Roland finds the energy to keep on moving. He reaches a river which he fords with trepidation, half-convinced that he is stepping on dead bodies floating under the water. Reaching the other bank, Roland is disturbed once more by the apocalyptic landscape, envisioning some dreadful battle that must have happened to create the scene of devastation he observes. Eventually the plain gives way to mountains, and Roland finds himself stuck, unable to find a clear path forward.
Suddenly, Roland realizes that the mountain he has been looking at is the very one that hides the Dark Tower.
The sunset sets the scene ablaze at that very moment, and a strange sound fills the air. “[I]n a sheet of flame” Roland sees the faces of his dead friends, and hears their names whispered in his ears. Remembering their lives, Roland finds himself surrounded by a “living frame” of old friends. Filled with inspiration, he pulls out his “slug-horn”, and blows, shouting “Childe Roland to the dark tower came”.
At this, the poem ends, leaving what lies inside of the Dark Tower a mystery. : : : :
The Write Up as HERE In ABOVE , is from the Wikipedia’s Article on ” Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came ” : : : : August 18 , 2023 : : : :
Charlotte Smith ( 1749 – 1896 ) 17 Th Century, English Proto – Romantic Poet of England , Like wandering fairy fires that oft on land Misled the pilgrim – such the dubious ray 13 That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way. 14: : 🌑 Land lights of the marshy land’s coastline 🕶️ is called ” fairy lights” : Friar’s lantern 🏮: 🎃 dubious or unstady guide occuring in dark.
Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening : : Sonnet : By Charlotte Smith ( 1749-1806 ) :
Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore, Night on the ocean settles dark and mute, 2 Save where is heard the repercussive roar 3 Of drowsy billows on the rugged foot 4 Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone 5 Of seamen in the anchored bark that tell 6 The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone Singing the hour, and bidding ‘Strike the bell!’ 8
All is black shadow but the lucid line 9 Marked by the light surf on the level sand,10 Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine 11 Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land Misled the pilgrim – such the dubious ray 13 That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way. 14
“Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening“ An English or Shakespearean sonnet: rhymed abab cdcd efef gg, with 3 quatrains followed by a 2 lines couplet , By Charlotte Smith ( 1749-1806 ) is About Evening Hours near A Sea-Port or harbour) : : The uneven and rugged “clifted ( Sea ) Shore”/ cleaved or Cracked as described in roughness whereupon ( “above” ) “Huge vapours ” grow ( “brood”) when the “ocean”(ward) Night settles down with the “mute” and “dark” features . : : Those ‘billows’ – the surging / bubbling ‘sea – waves’ smash through the rocks violently , and create a “repercussive roar” / make thunder sounds on the ” remote rocks”. : : The sailors in the “anchored bark”or sailing ship ⚓ with 3 / more masts , shout to each other in the shore where they have anchored the ship. One seaman takes over from another seaman , relieving on watch duty. : : The right time to signal the Hour of “bidding” / summoning “to strike the bell” in “one deep voice.. . alone singing the hour” has to be attained. : ( lines 1 To 8 ) :1 St & 2 NdQuatrains : : :: : : : :
“All is black shadow”Meaning, Everything is immersed into the ‘black shadow’ of “Dark(ness)” , that is ‘late’ “evening” is becoming night. The shadows suggest the transitional stage of The late evening between land and sea , at its ‘threshold’ of becoming a “Night”: : A transparently clear or “lucid line marked by the surf on the level sand” where the ‘surf’ or foamy sea- waves hit the sand and are visible as crystal clear. The lights from the distant / “ships afar ” break up the shadowy darkness, ” like wandering fairy fires”/ fabulous 🤩 yet illusionary, unreal or invented mislead – which is seen as ( supernatural, or legendary friar’s lantern , ) a pale – soft view to a wet marshy land / ( ” that oft on land mislead the pilgrim” ) of a coastline. This is ‘hope giving lights’, the exhausted and tired sailors / “pilgrims” could see at night. : ( lines 9 To 12 ) : 3 Rd Quatrain : : : :
A Couplet : lines 13 & 14 is About the sonnet’s philosophical central message conveyed by the signal of the ” fairy fires” : actually a soft pale light from the marshy coastline – explained in conclusion as “dubious ” that is , ‘not convincing’ as it is questionable and doubtful : The Enthralling “fairy fires” that mislead pilgrims, which is ‘unsteady’ light of guidance ‘held back’ ( ” wavering ) for unsure “reason” because someone like “pilgrim” journeying to a foreign land has to check ✅ the influence of such “dubious” guide while making his / her way through the “darkness” in journey of “life”. The last line 14 , in a Couplet reveals “That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way.” : Meaning ,The said “wavering reason” has to be made applicable as to its objective analysis “in life’s long darkling way”: occuring in uncannily or threateningly dark way which is a long / tiring journey and is obscure or unclear and confusing way. : : The sea shore to reach ( which is a sacred place to some pilgrims religious devotees ) shows the light indistinctly. : : “A subjective ‘illusion’ over objective ‘Truth’ may turn out as to be “darkling way.”: : : : The poetic significance here remains is in experiencingtheNatural World for a proto-Romantic poet like Charlotte Smith of the second half of the 18 Th Century. Because Nature in her Sonnet is bestowedupon with ‘fear’ with a storming power on the threshold of A long darkling way ( occuring in “dark” ) And that has to be hatching and growing in a real ascertainedway to philosophical Truth. Have fear in trying to depict the materials of Romanticism that involves the rough andtough imperfections which appear among the Natural Features which may not be always praiseworthy. : : : :
“Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening” Sonnet : Darkness Poem By Charlotte Smith Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India August 17 , 2023 : : : : : : : :
Lord Byron ( George Gordon ) World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo : : First page from the 1816 collection The Prisoner of Chillon.
Darkness : : BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON) 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; 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, The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d, And men were gather’d round their blazing homes To look once more into each other’s face; 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 Extinguish’d with a crash—and all was black. 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 Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil’d; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and look’d up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again 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 And twin’d 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 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; The meagre by the meagre were devour’d, Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead Lur’d their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answer’d not with a caress—he died. The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two 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 rak’d up, And shivering scrap’d 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 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, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d They slept on the abyss without a surge— The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon, their mistress, had expir’d before; The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the Universe.
Darkness” is a poem written by Lord Byron in July 1816 on the theme of an apocalyptic end of the world which was published as part of the 1816 The Prisoner of Chillon collection. The year 1816 was known as the Year Without a Summer, because Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies the previous year, casting enough sulphur into the atmosphere to reduce global temperatures and cause abnormal weather across much of north-east America and northern Europe. This pall of darkness inspired Byron to write his poem.
Literary critics were initially content to classify it as a “last man” poem, telling the apocalyptic story of the last man on earth. More recent critics have focused on the poem’s historical context, as well as the anti-biblical nature of the poem, despite its many references to the Bible. The poem was written only months after the end of Byron’s marriage to Anne Isabella Milbanke.Byron claimed to have received his inspiration for the poem, saying he “wrote it… at Geneva, when there was a celebrated dark day, on which the fowls went to roost at noon, and the candles were lighted as at midnight” : : The recent scholarship has pointed out the poem’s lack of any single “Last Man” character. At the conclusion of the poem, however, it is only the consciousness of the speaker that remains in a dark and desolate universe. Thus, the narrator could function as a Last Man character.
diagram of the estimated ash fallout from the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption. Ash clouds travelled much farther. 1816, the year in which the poem was written, was called “the year without a summer”, as strange weather and an inexplicable darkness caused record-cold temperatures, across Europe, especially in Geneva. The search for a cause of the strange changes in the light of day only grew as scientists discovered sunspots on the sun so large that they could be seen with the naked eye. A scientist in Italy even predicted that the sun would go out on 18 July, shortly before Byron’s writing of “Darkness”. His “prophecy” caused riots, suicides, and religious fervour all over Europe.
The queer prediction, and the strange behavior of nature at this time, stood in direct contrast with many of the feelings of the age. William Wordsworth often expresses in his writing a belief in the connection of God and nature which for much of the Romantic Era’s poetry is typical. His “Tintern Abbey”, for example, says “Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her”. His poetry also carries the idea that nature is a kind thing, living in peaceful co-existence with man. He says in the same poem, referring to nature, that “all which we behold / is full of blessings.” In other poems, such as “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, he uses language for flowers and clouds that is commonly used for heavenly hosts of angels. Even the more frightening Gothic poems of Coleridge, another famous poet of the time, argue for a kind treatment of nature that is only cruel if treated cruelly, as in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, unlike Byron’s sun, which goes out with no human mistreatment mentioned at all. : :
Byron also uses the hellish biblical language of the apocalypse to carry the real possibility of these events to his readers. The whole poem can be seen as a reference to Matthew 24:29: “the sun shall be darkened.” In line 32 it describes men “gnash[ing] their teeth” at the sky, a clear biblical parallel of hell. Vipers twine “themselves among the multitude, / Hissing.” Two men left alive of “an enormous city” gather “holy things” around an altar, “for an unholy usage”—to burn them for light. Seeing themselves in the light of the fire, they die at the horror of seeing each other “unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend.” In this future, all men are made to look like fiends, emaciated, dying with “their bones as tombless as their flesh.” They also act like fiends, as Byron says: “no love was left,” matching the biblical prophecy that at the end of the world, “the love of many shall wax cold.” In doing this, Byron is merely magnifying the events already occurring at the time. The riots, the suicides, the fear associated with the strange turn in the weather and the predicted destruction of the sun, had besieged not only people’s hope for a long life, but their beliefs about God’s creation and about themselves as well. By bringing out this diabolical imagery, Byron is communicating that fear; that “Darkness [or nature] had no need / of aid from them—She was the universe.”
Byron’s pessimistic views continue, as he mixes Biblical language with the apparent realities of science at the time. As Paley points out, it is not so much significant that Byron uses Biblical passages as that he deviates from them to make a point. For example, the thousand-year peace mentioned in the book of Revelation as coming after all the horror of the apocalypse does not exist in Byron’s “Darkness.” Instead, “War, which for a moment was no more, / Did glut himself again.” In other words, swords are only beaten temporarily into plowshares, only to become swords of war once again. Also, the fact that the vipers are “stingless” parallels the Biblical image of the peace to follow destruction: “And the sucking child shall play in the whole of the asp.” In the poem, though, the snake is rendered harmless, but the humans take advantage of this and the vipers are “slain for food.” Paley continues, saying “associations of millennial imagery are consistently invoked to be bitterly frustrated.”
The Above Write Up is From The Wikipedia’s Article About Lord Byron’s Poem “Darkness”: :
* Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening BY ROBERT FROST Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. — Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. 1923 : 1969 : : by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. : : Source: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995) : From poetryfoundation.org : For Educational Purposes only.
** Going : : By Philip Larkin : : : : There is an evening coming in Across the fields, one never seen before, That lights no lamps.
Silken it seems at a distance, yet When it is drawn up over the knees and breast It brings no comfort.
Where has the tree gone, that locked Earth to the sky? What is under my hands, That I cannot feel?
What loads my hands down? — Philip Larkin : From allpoetry.com : For Educational Purposes only.
*** A City Sunset: : By Thomas Earnest Hulme : : : : Alluring, Earth seducing, with high conceits is the sunset that reigns at the end of westward streets. . . A sudden flaring sky troubling strangely the passer by with visions, alien to long streets, of Cytherea or the smooth flesh of lady Castlemaine. . . A frolic of crimson is the spreading glory of the sky, heaven’s jocund maid flaunting a trailed red robe along the fretted city roofs about the time of homeward going crowds – a vain maid, lingering, loth to go. . . — T E Hulme : From allpoetry.com : For educational purposes Only.
*V : : Winter Dusk : : By Sara Teasdale : : : : I watch the great clear twilight Veiling the ice-bowed trees; Their branches tinkle faintly With crystal melodies.
The larches bend their silver Over the hush of snow; One star is lighted in the west, Two in the zenith glow.
For a moment I have forgotten Wars and women who mourn, I think of the mother who bore me And thank her that I was born.
V : Under the Harvest Moon: Carl Sandburg : Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers.
Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with little hands, Comes and touches you With a thousand memories, And asks you Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
V* : : She sweeps with many-colored Brooms: She sweeps with many-colored brooms … And leaves the shreds behind … Oh housewife in the evening west … Come back, and dust the pond! You dropped a purple ravelling in … You dropped an amber thread … And how you’ve littered all the east With duds of emerald!
And still, she plies her spotted brooms, And still the aprons fly, Till brooms fade softly into stars … And then I come away …
V** : : Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold : : By William Shakespeare : : : : That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by. This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
—William Shakespeare
V*** : : Central Park at Dusk : Sara Teasdale: : Buildings above the leafless trees Loom high as castles in a dream, While one by one the lamps come out To thread the twilight with a gleam.
There is no sign of leaf or bud, A hush is over everything— Silent as women wait for love, The world is waiting for the spring.
*X : : Crossing The Bar : : By Alfred Lord Tennyson : : : : Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
X : : As I Walked Out One Evening : : By W H Auden ( 1907 – 1973 ) : : : :
As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Under an arch of the railway: ‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits, For in my arms I hold The Flower of the Ages, And the first love of the world.’
But all the clocks in the city Began to whirr and chime: ‘O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare Where Justice naked is, Time watches from the shadow And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley Drifts the appalling snow; Time breaks the threaded dances And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the tea-cup opens A lane to the land of the dead.
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes And the Giant is enchanting to Jack, And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer, And Jill goes down on her back.
‘O look, look in the mirror, O look in your distress: Life remains a blessing Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start; You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart.’
It was late, late in the evening, The lovers they were gone; The clocks had ceased their chiming, And the deep river ran on.
— W H Auden : From Another Time published by Random House ( 1940 ) / Curtis Brown, Ltd. : : From poets.org : For Educational Purposes only.
X* : : Evening : : By Rainer Maria Rilke ( 1875 –1926) : : Translation By Jessie Lamont : : : : The bleak fields are asleep, My heart alone wakes; The evening in the harbour Down his red sails takes.
Night, guardian of dreams, Now wanders through the land; The moon, a lily white, Blossoms within her hand. — Rainer Maria Rilke : : This poem is in the public domain. From Poems ( Tobias A. Wright, 1918 )
X** : : Evening : : By Richard Addington ( Edward Godfree Addington : 8 July 1892 – 27 July 1962 ) : : English Poet :
The chimneys, rank on rank, Cut the clear sky; The moon, With a rag of gauze about her loins Poses among them, an awkward Venus —
And here am I looking wantonly at her Over the kitchen sink.
Everyday Poem About admiring The Moon in the clear Sky of an Evening , and comparing to the Roman Goddess Of LOVE while doing the everyday routine chores of the cleaning ( dishes , etc. ) in a Standing position at the Kitchen Sink. : “With a rag” ( small piece of cloth ) “of gauze” ( meant for bandages and dressing ) “about her loins”( pubic region ) “Poses among them , an awkward Venus – ” ( The Speaker says, ” I looking wantonly ( in general manner ) “at her” ( The Roman Goddess ) “Over the kitchen sink.” : : : : : : : : *Addington married with the poet Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) in 1911 : He wrote a Novel ( Death Of A Hero : 1938 ) and also a Biographies of D H Lawrence , R L Stevenson and T E Lawrence ( Lawrence Of Arabia ) He took part in World War I : : The inscription on A Slate stone in his commemoration at Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner reads a quotation from Wilfred Owen. “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”
X*** : Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening : : Sonnet : By Charlotte Smith ( 1749-1806 ) :
Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore, Night on the ocean settles dark and mute, 2 Save where is heard the repercussive roar 3 Of drowsy billows on the rugged foot 4 Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone5 Of seamen in the anchored bark that tell6 The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone Singing the hour, and bidding ‘Strike the bell!’ 8
All is black shadow but the lucid line 9 Marked by the light surf on the level sand,10 Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine 11 Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land Misled the pilgrim – such the dubious ray13 That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way. 14
About Evening Hours near A Sea-Port or harbour) : : The uneven and rugged“clifted ( Sea ) Shore”/ cleaved or Cracked is described in roughness whereupon ( “above” ) “Huge vapours ” grow ( “brood”) when the “ocean”(ward) Night settles down with the “mute” and “dark” features . : : Those ‘billows’ – the surging / bubbling ‘sea – waves’ smash through the rocks violently and create a “repercussive roar” / make thunder sounds on the ” remote rocks”. : : The sailors in the “anchored bark”or sailing ship ⚓ with 3 / more masts , shout to each other whereto the shore they have anchored the ship. One seaman takes over from another seaman relieving on watch duty. : : The right time to signal the Hour of “bidding” / summoning “to strike the bell” in “one deep voice.. . alone singing the hour” has to be attained. : ( lines 1 To 8 ) : 1 St & 2 Nd Quatrains : : :: : : :: : : :: : : :: : : :: : : :: : : : : :::: All is black shadow but the lucid lineMarked by the light surf on the level sand, Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land Misled the pilgrim – such the dubious ray That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way. Everything is plunged in the ‘black shadow’ of “Dark” , that is ‘late’ “evening” becoming night. The shadows suggest the transitional stage of The late evening between land and sea , at its ‘threshold’ of becoming a “Night”: : A clearly visible or “lucid line marked by the surf on the level sand” where the ‘surf’ or foamy sea- waves hit the sand. The lights from the distant / “ships afar ” break up the shadowy darkness, ” like wandering fairy fires”/ fabulous 🤩 yet illusionary, unreal or invented mislead – which is seen as ( supernatural, or legendary friar’s lantern , ) a pale – soft view to marshy land / ( ” that oft on land mislead the pilgrim” ) of a coastline with ‘hope giving lights’ that the exhausted and tired sailors / “pilgrims” could see at night. : ( lines 9 To 12 ) : 3 Rd Quatrain : : : :
“Misled the pilgrim – such the dubious ray 13 That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way.” 14 . : : ( Couplet : lines 13 & 14 ) : : About the sonnet’s philosophical central message by the ” fairy fire” : actually a soft pale light of marshy coastline – explained in conclusion are “dubious ” that is , not convincing as it is questionable and doubtful: Enthralling like the “fairy fires” that mislead pilgrims, which is unstable and unreliable guides as we make our way through the “darkness” of “life. A subjective ‘illusion’ over objective ‘Truth’. The poetic significance left is experiencing the Natural World in proto-Romantic poets like Charlotte Smith of the second half of the 18 Th Century. Because Nature in this Sonnet is feared with a storming power on the threshold of A long darkling way to hatching and growing up the real way to philosophical Truth, but with fear , while trying to depict the materials of Romanticism involving the rough and tough imperfections appearing among Natural Features. : : : :
— Mohan Singh ( Punjabi ) : Translated in English by Balwant Gargi
Third World Resurgence No. 293/294, January/February 2015, p 64
“Evening”, A Punjabi ( INDIAN ) Poem By Mohan Singh , academic by profession and one of the pioneers of Modern Punjabi Poetry. : : It is About erotic love between Evening suggested as 🐑 Female and 🐴 horse as Male 🐎 The imagery in lines 1 To 5 ” The sun horse panting and snorting 1
Reaches the shores of evening 2
Kicking his hoofs and flicking red dust 3
His vermilion mane wet with perspiration 4
He throws red foam from his mouth” 5
permeate the sexual symbolism ( especially , the words : ” panting” ( heavy breathing ), “snorting” ( huffing / exulting hard ) , “kicking his hoofs” ( rhythmic thrusting movement of legs : hoof ,an end of covering of foot suggestive of powerful kick ) , “flicking the red dust” ( jerking with quick motion / hitting blow / removing with hands ) , “vermilion mane ” ( long hairs on creek of his neck) , “wet with perspiration ” ( moistness suggestive of sexual excitement ) , ” red dust” flicked ( cause to move intermittently ) , “throws red foam from his mouth ” ( put with great energy ) : The “redness” symbolising ‘eroticism’ ; And “Reaches the shores of evening” ( suggestive of a woman’s moist sexuality ) The aforesaid descriptions with rich imageries and symbolism draws a picture of manliness of A Male ( here depicted in horse ‘s traits ) as well as softening traits found in the sexuality of A Woman ( here depicted in Evening ) : : : :
” The mellow-coloured Evening comes 6
And places her hand between his pricked ears 7
Her long fingers8
Feel the hot breath from his nostrils 9
And take off the bridle from his mouth 10
The restive animal 11
Tamed and quietened 12
The words hereinabove like : : : : : : : : : : : : : “pricked” in the line 7 , ” places her hand between his pricked ears ” is suggestive of the male sexual organ. The word “comes” starts off the line 6 , “The mellow-colored Evening comes ” Meaning, A woman as an Evening , appears as in mellowly manner , of softness , Ripeness of her age and maturity and pleasantly high. : : “long fingers”( line 8 ) of an Evening “Feel the hot breath from” the “nostrils” ( line 9 ) of her beloved horse , “And take off the bridle from his mouth ” ( line 10 ) , that is, the removing of the headgear ( “bridle”with headstall and bit of controlling a horse by his rider , here by an Evening ) : Hereby checking / restraining controls are taken off . Hence , the horse has been allowed to act on his empowered will and intent , unlimitedly. The animal can now act in his jumpy , nervy , uptight manner of stretching tightness on his own. The aforesaid action thus makes A horse , “The restive animal” ( line 11 ) , Tamed and quietened ” ( line 12 ) : : And then .. .
“Walks behind the Evening slowly 13
And goes into the stable of darkness” 14
The sexual act has been accomplished and so A horse “walks behind his beloved “Evening slowly” : : And then ” goes into the stable of darkness” ( lines 13 & 14 ) : : : :
“Evening” By Mohan Singh Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India August 14 , 2023
MADHU MALTI 