MADHU MALTI

The Waste Land : T S Eliot : : April Poems : : Month Poems : :

The Waste Land
BY T. S. ELIOT
‘Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: άποθανεîν θέλω.’

For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro.

I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: ‘Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
‘Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
‘You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

II. A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

‘My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
I never know what you are thinking. Think.’

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

‘What is that noise?’
The wind under the door.
‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’
Nothing again nothing.
‘Do
‘You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
‘Nothing?’

I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’
But

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’
‘I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
‘With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
‘What shall we ever do?’
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

III. The Fire Sermon

The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

‘This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala

Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala

‘Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.’

‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?’

‘On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.’
la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wins
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih

T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” from Collected Poems: 1909-1962. Copyright © 2020 by T. S. Eliot.
Source: Collected Poems: 1909-1962 (Faber and Faber, Ltd., 2020)
: : From poetryfoundation.org : For Educational Purposes only

“The Waste Land” By T S Eliot is About brokenness and loss and Eliot’s numerous allusions to the First World War suggesting the war which played a significant part in bringing about this social, psychological, and emotional collapse ; but included here as an ” April Poem ” , just because of its Opening line , ” April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.” : : Meaning , the month of April is disposed of in inflicting pain or suffering in the sense as if in course of actions or happenings, it were to bring “stirring Dull roots” with spring rain.” That will be deplorable and not celebrated as we understand in common parlance. The destructive image such as April ,” breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire”:

Notes for each of the Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India January 23 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

To R D ; March 4 Th , 1988 : : Denis Levertov : : March Poems : : Month Poems : :

Denis Levertov ( 24 October,1923 At Priscilla Denise Levertoff – 20 December, 1997 : Aged 77 years , At Seattle , Washington , U S ) : : POET: Active 1946 To 1997 : : Shelly Memorial Award 1984 & Robert Frost Medal 1990 : Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. : her war poetry was published in her 1971 book To Stay Alive, a collection of anti-Vietnam War letters, newscasts, diary entries, and conversations. :Suffering is another major theme in Levertov’s war poetry. The poems “Poetry, Prophecy, Survival,” “Paradox and Equilibrium,” and “Poetry and Peace: Some Broader Dimensions” revolve around war, injustice, and prejudice. In her volume Life at War, Levertov uses imagery to express the disturbing violence of the Vietnam War. Throughout these poems, she addresses violence and savagery, yet tries to bring grace into the equation, mixing the beauty of language and the ugliness of the horrors of war. : Levertov’s first successful Vietnam poetry was her book Freeing of the Dust : . After years of writing such poetry, Levertov eventually came to the conclusion that beauty and poetry and politics can’t go together. : : Levertov wrote and published 24 books of poetry, and also criticism and translations. She also edited several anthologies. : Levertov’s ‘What Were They Like?’ is currently included in the Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9–1) English Literature poetry anthology,[13] and the Conflict cluster of the OCR GCSE (9-1) English Literature poetry anthology, ‘Towards a World Unknown.’ : :

To R. D., MARCH 4th, 1988 You were my mentor. Without knowing it,
I outgrew the need for a mentor.
Without knowing it, you resented that,
and attacked me. I bitterly resented
the attack, and without knowing it
freed myself to move forward
without a mentor. Love and long friendship
corroded, shrank, and vanished from sight
into some underlayer of being.
The years rose and fell, rose and fell,
and the news of your death after years of illness
was a fact without resonance for me,
I had lost you long before, and mourned you,
and put you away like a folded cloth
put away in a drawer. But today I woke
while it was dark, from a dream
that brought you live into my life:
I was in a church, near the Lady Chapel
at the head of the west aisle. Hearing a step
I turned: you were about to enter
the row behind me, but our eyes met
and you smiled at me, your unfocussed eyes
focussing in that smile to renew
all the reality our foolish pride extinguished.
You moved past me then, and as you sat down
beside me, I put a welcoming hand
over yours, and your hand was warm.
I had no need
for a mentor, nor you to be one;
but I was once more
your chosen sister, and you
my chosen brother
We heard strong harmonies rise and begin to fill
the arching stone,
sounds that had risen here through centuries.

Denise Levertov wrote to her longtime correspondent Robert Duncan after Duncan’s death , on 3 February , 1997. Duncan was a Poet Mentor of Levertov in her youth. They were good friends, but they had a falling-out, which is referred in this poem. It was included in a book of their letters. According to Bell Randall’s review of The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov, “ : As a reader , you are offered a rare chance to understand where two old friends went wrong.” The Poem , “To R D; March 4, 1988” , is ‘A Threnody’ (Hymn : memorial for a dead person ) : : A tender sorrowful grief for the lost Friendship which is being rediscovered after a death. Love in the friendship can be channelised towards rapprochement as late as the time even on hearing death ; As the same has happened here in this poem on March 4 , 1988 . As what Billy Mills wrote ( in gurdian dated March 23 , 2012 ) : ” March love can be directed towards the winter gone by as much as the spring to come.” : : : :

In Honour of Friendship, ” To R D; March 4, 1988 : : A March Poem By Denis Levertov : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India January 22 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

Stella’s Birthday March 13 , 1727 : : March Poems : : Month Poems : :

Jonathan Swift ( ) -Irish poet, satirist, essayist, and political pamphleteer Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland. He spent much of his early adult life in England before returning to Dublin to serve as Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin for the last 30 years of his life….

Stella’s Birthday March 13, 1727
BY JONATHAN SWIFT
This day, whate’er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days:
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.

Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.

Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain,
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their proselytes for vice;
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes;)
Grant this the case; yet sure ’tis hard
That virtue, styl’d its own reward,
And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should, acting, die, nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind;
Which by remembrance will assuage
Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To shine through life’s declining part.

Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well spent?
Your skilful hand employ’d to save
Despairing wretches from the grave;
And then supporting with your store
Those whom you dragg’d from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preserving what it first creates.
Your gen’rous boldness to defend
An innocent and absent friend;
That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you express
For vice in all its glitt’ring dress;
That patience under torturing pain,
Where stubborn stoics would complain:
Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chimæras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends,
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue, in her daily race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where she has gone
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.

O then, whatever Heav’n intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suff’rings share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I’m alive to tell you so.
— Jonathan Swift : : : : ….Source: The Poems of Jonathan Swift (edited by Harold Williams) (Oxford University Press, 1958)

“Stella’s Birthday March 13, 1727” , A March Poem By Jonathan Swift is About the happier aspects of living on the birthday of the Poet’s beloved companion. The Poet tells Stella with authority to do as per the instructions especially ” to look with joy on what is past.” : He puts an emphasis on not worrying about an uncertain future. : : The Poem throws light on the important Relationship in the life of the writer , poet. : : : :

Notes for each of the lines of the poem Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India January 21 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

Kyoto March : Gary Snider : : March Poems : : Month Poems : :

Kyoto: March
BY GARY SNYDER
A few light flakes of snow 1
Fall in the feeble sun; 2
Birds sing in the cold, 3
A warbler by the wall. The plum 4
Buds tight and chill soon bloom. 5
The moon begins first 6
Fourth, a faint slice west 7
At nightfall. Jupiter half-way 8
High at the end of night- 9
Meditation. The dove cry 10
Twangs like a bow. 11
At dawn Mt. Hiei dusted white 12
On top; in the clear air 13
Folds of all the gullied green 14
Hills around the town are sharp, 15
Breath stings. Beneath the roofs 16
Of frosty houses 17
Lovers part, from tangle warm 18
Of gentle bodies under quilt 19
And crack the icy water to the face 20
And wake and feed the children 21
And grandchildren that they love. 22 : : : : — From poetryfoundation.org.com : : For Educational Purposes only. : :

“Kyoto March, A March Poem By Gary Snider is About Love , both “tangle warm Of gentle bodies under quilt” And ” A few light flakes of snow” that “Fall in the feeble sun” ( lines 1 & 2 ) : Thus , March can be both ‘Winter’ as well as ‘Spring’ : Due to the chill, “The plum Buds are tight and … Soon bloom” ( lines 4 & 5 ) : With their announcement of new season of Spring, “Birds sing in the cold, A warbler by the wall.” ( lines 3 & 4 ) : A small active songbird called, “A warbler by the wall.” adds ’embellishments’ to the song with its decorative details. So, the quality of chilling at the snow is not that perilous and will not jeopardize the blossoming. : : : :

The Poem becomes Skyward from “nightfall” through the Night Time till “the end of night” : : As in lines 6 To 11 : ” The moon begins first 6
Fourth, a faint slice west 7
At nightfall. Jupiter half-way 8
High at the end of night- 9
Meditation. The dove cry 10
Twangs like a bow.” 11 : And then “Breaths .. . in the clean air, At dawn” from the mountainous “gullied Hills”in snow capped “Mt. Hiei” To ” Beneath the roofs Of Frosty houses” As in lines 12 To 17,”At dawn Mt. Hiei dusted white 12
On top; in the clear air 13
Folds of all the gullied green 14
Hills around the town are sharp, 15
Breath stings. Beneath the roofs 16
Of frosty houses 17 : :

“Lovers part, from tangle warm 18
Of gentle bodies under quilt 19
And crack the icy water to the face 20
And wake and feed the children 21
And grandchildren that they love.” 22

“The Lovers”who have been tangled up throughout the night time of Cold Conditions finding a warmth breathed out from their twisted “gentle bodies under quilt” that have warded off the ’cause’ of getting ‘stiff’ with ‘shivering cold’: : They then have to be fully awakened from the sleepy eyed face for which they freshen up by ” the icy water” cracking yield of wakefulness “to the face” : : Thus a sharp change over from “tangle warm” To ‘solicited cold’ happening quickly. Because they have to “wake and feed the children” : ( line 21 ) “And grandchildren that they love.” : : : : This is how and what happens At Night Time and At Dawn , Next Day in the Month Of March in the city of “Kyoto”; A city in central Japan on southern Honshu ; a famous cultural centre that was once the Capital of Japan. : : : :

“Kyoto March”, A March Poem Of Love : during a winter – mixed Springtime, By Gary Snider: : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India January 20 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

March Is The Month Of Expectations : Emily Dickinson : :

March is the Month of Expectation : : 1404 : : by Emily Dickinson : : : : .. …. … …… : : March is the Month of Expectation.
The things we do not know –
The Persons of prognostication
Are coming now –
We try to show becoming firmness –
But pompous Joy
Betrays us, as his first Betrothal
Betrays a Boy.

Emily Dickinson ( 1830–86) : : Complete Poems. 1924.

Part Five: The Single Hound

XLVIII

“March Is The Month Of Expectations”, A March Poem By Emily Dickinson is About the month of expectation , a welcome visitor bringing colour back to a winter-bleached world. : : ” The Persons of prognostication Are coming now –” Emily writes , Meaning a Sign of Something about to happen. Especially something that is important. : : : “The things we do not know” She looks for a presage beforehand. ” We try to show becoming firmness –” : The joy betrays as his first betrothal Betrays a Bo.” : Characterized by pretentious pomp and display. : : : :

The Bight: Elizabeth Bishop : March Poems : : Month Poems : :

Elizabeth Bishop : : The Bright : :

At low tide like this how sheer the water is. 1
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare 2
and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches. 3
Absorbing, rather than being absorbed, 4
the water in the bight doesn’t wet anything,5
the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible. 6
One can smell it turning to gas; if one were Baudelaire 7
one could probably hear it turning to marimba music. 8
The little ocher dredge at work off the end of the dock 9
already plays the dry perfectly off-beat claves. 10
The birds are outsize. Pelicans crash 11
into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard, 12
it seems to me, like pickaxes, 13
rarely coming up with anything to show for it, 14
and going off with humorous elbowings. 15
Black-and-white man-of-war birds soar 16
on impalpable drafts 17
and open their tails like scissors on the curves 18
or tense them like wishbones, till they tremble. 19
The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in 20
with the obliging air of retrievers, 21
bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks 22
and decorated with bobbles of sponges. 23
There is a fence of chicken wire along the dock 24
where, glinting like little plowshares, 25
the blue-gray shark tails are hung up to dry 26
for the Chinese-restaurant trade. 27
Some of the little white boats are still piled up 28
against each other, or lie on their sides, stove in, 29
and not yet salvaged, if they ever will be, from the last bad storm, 30
like torn-open, unanswered letters. 31
The bight is littered with old correspondences. 32
Click. Click. Goes the dredge, 33
and brings up a dripping jawful of marl. 34
All the untidy activity continues, 35
awful but cheerful. 36

Elizabeth Bishop

“The Bight” , A March Poem as well as an ‘Occasional Poem'( having subtitle : On My Birthday ) By Elizabeth Bishop is About A section of coastline that dips or curves inward ( where it bends or recedes from the sea ) in Key West Florida, where she lived briefly. She describes low tide in a bight where birds, shattered boats, fishermen, and the poet herself are part of the scenery and her visionary seascape. The 36 lines ( with some rhythmic unity ) at a stretch does not follow any Rhyme. However, “glare” ( line 2 ) & Boudelair ( line 7 ) , “wishbone” ( line 19 ) & ” boats” ( line 20 ) & ” marl” ( line 34 ) & “cheerful” ( line 36 ) are interesting expressions with Poetic techniques. : : : :

1) lines 1 To 6 : : “At low tide like this how sheer the water is. 1
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare 2
and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches. 3
Absorbing, rather than being absorbed, 4
the water in the bight doesn’t wet anything,5
the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.” 6 : : : :

About describing the Water”At low tide”: : The Poem begins with the word “At Low tide” is a showy visual representation found as integrated throughout the poem. The water is ‘thinly’ transparent which we perceive from the expression, “how sheer the water is.” ( line 1 ) Meaning one could ‘see through’ it , “At low tide” : The plain water is filmy and clear. “marl” is a calcite or dolomite / mineral deposit crumbling loosely out of the low set water. She describes these ” White crumbling ribs of marl”( line 2 ) as protrusion : prominently projected “glare”in the light: brighter than the brilliance to which the vision is adapted. Her marking looks forthe “boats” that “are dry, the pilings dry as matches”. ( line 3 ) : “pilings” are the support laid to the structure in docks which sucks up water well rather than “being absorbed” in the water; hence looked as “dry as matches”( line 4 ) : ” the water in the bight doesn’t wet anything,” ( line 5 ): The water is always wet , that is every surface is caused to become wettish. : Thus, contrasting things are connected together, figuratively to call it ‘Oxymoron’ : : The water , here is sitting without move or rising. The things don’t get wet , and remain dried. : : The next line 6,”the colour of the gas flame turned as low as possible” : Meaning it is faint; slightly ablaze. : : : : As said in line 1 , “like this”, the readers have been engaged in the plotted scenery that The Poet has started with its Seascape being built in for here poem,”The Bite” : : : :

Notes for each of the remaining lines 7 To 36 Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India January 18 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

The End Of March : Elizabeth Bishop : : March Poems : : Month Poems : :

**“A Windy Day on the North Shore, Nantucket Island, Mass,” The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library.**

The End Of March by Elizabeth Bishop

It was cold and windy, scarcely the day
to take a walk on that long beach
Everything was withdrawn as far as possible,
indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken,
seabirds in ones or twos.
The rackety, icy, offshore wind
numbed our faces on one side;
disrupted the formation
of a lone flight of Canada geese;
and blew back the low, inaudible rollers
in upright, steely mist.

The sky was darker than the water
–it was the color of mutton-fat jade.
Along the wet sand, in rubber boots, we followed
a track of big dog-prints (so big
they were more like lion-prints). Then we came on
lengths and lengths, endless, of wet white string,
looping up to the tide-line, down to the water,
over and over. Finally, they did end:
a thick white snarl, man-size, awash,
rising on every wave, a sodden ghost,
falling back, sodden, giving up the ghost…
A kite string?–But no kite.

I wanted to get as far as my proto-dream-house,
my crypto-dream-house, that crooked box
set up on pilings, shingled green,
a sort of artichoke of a house, but greener
(boiled with bicarbonate of soda?),
protected from spring tides by a palisade
of–are they railroad ties?
(Many things about this place are dubious.)
I’d like to retire there and do nothing,
or nothing much, forever, in two bare rooms:
look through binoculars, read boring books,
old, long, long books, and write down useless notes,
talk to myself, and, foggy days,
watch the droplets slipping, heavy with light.
At night, a grog a l’américaine.
I’d blaze it with a kitchen match
and lovely diaphanous blue flame
would waver, doubled in the window.
There must be a stove; there is a chimney,
askew, but braced with wires,
and electricity, possibly
–at least, at the back another wire
limply leashes the whole affair
to something off behind the dunes.
A light to read by–perfect! But–impossible.
And that day the wind was much too cold
even to get that far,
and of course the house was boarded up.

On the way back our faces froze on the other side.
The sun came out for just a minute.
For just a minute, set in their bezels of sand,
the drab, damp, scattered stones
were multi-colored,
and all those high enough threw out long shadows,
individual shadows, then pulled them in again.
They could have been teasing the lion sun,
except that now he was behind them
–a sun who’d walked the beach the last low tide,
making those big, majestic paw-prints,
who perhaps had batted a kite out of the sky to play with.
— Elizabeth Bishop : : The End of March : : : :

“The End Of March”, A March Poem in cradling Rhythm By Elizabeth Bishop is About ‘In – between Time Of Seasons and the mindful notes about the pictorial recollection of the nearly ending Season. The Poetic elements meditate of the close of winter and hope to spring from the seascape to dreamscape ; looking backward and forward ; contemplating with newness over the aspects like “The End of March”, With brief “icy beach walk”and the vividly described landscape in the Nature including wind, Retreating ocean, sky, sea birds like geese, and entry of Animals with prints of a dog as big as lion, alongwith life details of the ” proto / crypto – dream – house” with a desire and her monologue to settle in , The “house boarded-up” for continuing cold, A brief egression of “the lion sun” together with aerial but tethered flying kite representing the better things to come.: : : :

Notes for each of the 4 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India January 17 , 2023 : : ; : : : : :

March : A E Housman : : March Poems : : Month Poems : :

A E Housman ( 1859 – 1936 ) : Alfred Edward Housman was born in Fockbury, Worcestershire, England, on March 26, 1859. He published two volumes of poetry during his life, including A Shropshire Lad (1896), which was widely read during World War I : : : : : A Shropshire Lad, XIII

**When I was one-and-twenty**
**I heard a wise man say,**
**‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas**
**But not your heart away;**

**Give pearls away and rubies**
**But keep your fancy free.’**
**But I was one-and-twenty,**
**No use to talk to me.**

**When I was one-and-twenty**
**I heard him say again,**
**‘The heart out of the bosom**
**Was never given in vain;**
**’Tis paid with sighs a plenty**
**And sold for endless rue.’**
**And I am two-and-twenty,**
**And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.**

**A. E. Housman**

**1896 A Shropshire Lad, XXXVI**

**White in the moon the long road lies,**
**The moon stands blank above;**
**White in the moon the long road lies**
**That leads me from my love.**

**Still hangs the hedge without a gust,**
**Still, still the shadows stay:**
**My feet upon the moonlit dust**
**Pursue the ceaseless way.**

**The world is round, so travellers tell,**
**And straight though reach the track,**
**Trudge on, trudge on, ’twill all be well,**
**The way will guide one back.**

**But ere the circle homeward hies**
**Far, far must it remove:**
**White in the moon the long road lies**
**That leads me from my love.**

**A. E. Housman**

A E Housman in 1910 , best known for his simple style, memorable and moving images that made his work popular during his lifetime. His collection A Shropshire Lad, a cycle of 63 poems, is his most widely read. It has sustained his reputation since his death in 1936 and includes poems like ‘Oh Who Is That Young Sinner,’ ‘1887,’ and ‘To an Athlete Dying Young.’ Housman is also remembered for his career as a classical scholar and his role as a professor of Latin at Cambridge University. His final collection was published in 1922, titled Last Poems.

A Shropshire Lad, X
A. E. Housman – 1859-1936

MARCH

The Sun at noon to higher air,
Unharnessing the silver Pair
That late before his chariot swam,
Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.

So braver notes the storm-cock sings
To start the rusted wheel of things,
And brutes in field and brutes in pen
Leap that the world goes round again.

The boys are up the woods with day
To fetch the daffodils away,
And home at noonday from the hills
They bring no dearth of daffodils.

Afield for palms the girls repair,
And sure enough the palms are there,
And each will find by hedge or pond
Her waving silver-tufted want.

In farm and field through all the shire
They eye beholds the heart’s desire;
Ah, let not only mine be vain,
For lovers should be loved again.

“March” , A March Poem By A E Housman is About Finding a Love With the coming Of Spring. What daffodils were for Wordsworth , sorrow was for A. E. Housman. Here , the Poet Or the Lad is cheerful and optimistic. His verdict in the last line,” Lovers should be loved again.” : : : ” In farm and field through all the shire. They eye beholds the heart’s desire. “ : : : :

Notes for each of the 5 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India January 16, 2023 : : : : : : : :

Beeny Cliff : Thomas Hardy : : March Poems : : Month Poems : :

“Beeny Cliff” is one of a set of elegies written by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) following the death of his wife Emma (née Gifford), who died at their home, Max Gate in Dorchester, Dorset, on 17th November 1912 at the age of 72. In March 1913 Hardy journeyed westwards to north Cornwall to revisit the places where he had courted Emma 43 years previously. He wrote several poems during the trip, as well as others (written both before and after his visit) that poured from him as a response to her death, all of them appearing as “Poems 1912-13”, published in 1914. Thomas and Emma married in 1874, but the marriage was not always happy and eventually the couple lived virtually parallel lives with Emma occupying her own rooms in the attic of Max Gate. Emma was in considerable pain towards the end of her life from impacted gallstones, and Thomas had tended to play down her symptoms. He was therefore unprepared for her death, and she died without him at her bedside. It was his guilt and remorse following her death that inspired the series of poems of which “Beeny Cliff” is one.

Beeny is a hamlet in north Cornwall, England, UK. It is in a sheltered valley near the coast two miles (3 km) north-east of Boscastle. : : : : in “A Death-Day Recalled,” collected in Satires of Circumstance (1914), Thomas Hardy wrote:

**Beeny did not quiver,**
**Juliot grew not gray,**
**Thin Vallency’s river**
**Held its wonted way.**
**Bos seemed not to utter**
**Dimmest note of dirge,**
**Targan mouth a mutter[2]**
**To its creamy surge.**

**Yet though these, unheeding,**
**Listless, passed the hour**
**Of her spirit’s speeding,**
**She had, in her flower,**
**Sought and loved the places**
**Much and often pined**
**For their lonely faces**
**When in towns confined.**

**Why did not Vallency**
**In his purl deplore**
**One whose haunts were whence he**
**Drew his limpid store?**
**Why did Bos not thunder,**
**Targan apprehend**
**Body and Breath were sunder**
**Of their former friend?**

Beeny Cliff by Thomas Hardy
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea, 1
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free – 2
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me. 3

The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away 4
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say, 5
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day. 6

A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain, 7
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain, 8
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main. 9

– Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky, 10
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh, 11
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by? 12

What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore, 13
The woman now is – elsewhere – whom the ambling pony bore, 14
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore. 15 : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :: — Thomas Hardy : : : : From bbc.co.uk For Educational Purposes only. : : : :

“Beeny Cliff” , A March Poem, Written in 1912 / 13 , in the wake of the death of his first wife , Emma (née Gifford), who died at their home, Max Gate in Dorchester, Dorset, on 17th November 1912 at the age of 72. His memoirs of their life together calls forth the feelings and emotions and evokes a stimulus to write the finest lines in the English Language on the loss of his life partner arousing yearning. We see that Thomas Hardy in this poem, “Beeny Cliff” too, rejects any Spiritual realisation in love : Hardy became an atheist at his earlier youthful days , and could not harbour the thoughts or feelings of afterlife or hereafter. : : : :

Triplet 1 : : “Beeny Cliff by Thomas Hardy
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea, 1
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free – 2
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.” 3 : : : : lines 1 To 3 : : : :

The “western sea” ( Atlantic ) followed a “wandering” course , that is appearing ‘irregular in ‘forwarding to its shore’ where the Beeny Cliff”is put up ( having a hamlet : a small settlement at the crossroad ). : The Poet saw reflected backdrop giving it an “opal” colour which was translucent : clear and also found it like “sapphire”: light blue shade of azure; both the colours are that of gemstones. During the courting time of his youth, at this backdrop of the seaside heights , his love – his wife, Emma was “riding high above with bright hair” in a wavy style, rising and falling in the shoreward wind , that is “flapping free”: : Here the Expression ,” The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.” : In line 3 merited Emma’s love for Hardy who in the same way surprisingly had not expressed for his loyalty for Emma. Is this Triplet 1 , incomplete or what!? : : : :

Triplet 2 : : “The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away 4
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say, 5
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.” 6 : : : :lines 4 To 6 : :

The two lovers “laughed light-heartedly” aloft ( that is, with their soaring spirit ) on that clear – sunned March day.” They were on the ‘Cliff top’ and below them, the sea “waves seemed far away”: : The word “mews”used for the ‘private stable’ for the horses ; and the sea could be seen as sending forth ‘white horses’ energetically in the wind : that is “The pale mews” in the plains at the sea shore below the Cliff Top, The sky looked as if located beneath. : In the irregular current and bubbling noise of this wind, the sea, like a babby saying, is “babbling” : “engrossed”: ( fully engaged ) ceaselessly. : : : :

Triplet 3 : : “A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain, 7
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain, 8
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.” 9 : : : : lines 7 To 9

The “rain” described as “irised”: that is ‘iridescent’ having the varying/ changing lustrous colours of rainbow 🌈 , “the Atlantic dyed it’s level with a dull misfeatured stain” , and “purples prinked the main” : ( In lines 7 , 8 & 9 ) : : Donald Davie, wrote in 1972 , that ” Hardy was, in the last of these examples, using a phrase taken from Virgil’s Aeneid to suggest that the purple light was from another, non-Earthly, dimension, and that this is a pointer to Emma’s current status as a spirit that haunts ( frequently visiting ) this place.” : : Hardyan coinages :” irised” ( for iridescent ), “misfeatured” stain ( on dull ) are wonderfully employed by Thomas Hardy. , “prinked”, in “purples prinked the main”, which means ‘to make minor adjustments to one’s appearance’ and thus Hardy personified the purple ; which becomes appealing and attractive as if dressed in the special clothes with a peaky style. Thus the Triplet 3 shows vividly coloured memories dancing before the world view of Hardy , The Poet. : : “a little cloud then cloaked us” ( line 7 ) refers to the memory of the day in March 1870. The clouds were temporary as said with “the sun bursting out again” ( line 9 ) : However, the Expression “cloaked us” conveys some ‘false appearace’ hidden temporarily to be cleared up by the light that will appear later on ( in the poem ) in future. Afterall, Hardy is writing this poem of Memoirs of March on his revisiting the place of Beeny Cliff, a place of sweet memories of courting his love and laughter ; loss and lounging : : : :

Triplet 4 : : ” Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky, 10
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh, 11
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?” 12 : : : : lines 10 To 12

The First Three Triplets have been taken in as the Memoirs of the two lovers laughing at the Cliff Top But now, after some 43 years of time in the past, Hardy was all alone at the same spot and his wife Emma was no more to be with him. The “sweet” memories were continually recurring to his mind. The same place called Beeny Cliff, with a deep opening in the division in to the Sea Side and plains at the hamlet, as Seen from the Cliff Top, bears the same “chasmal beauty”which swells up outward : “bulks old Beeny to the sky”: Similarly, there is a division between Hardy and Emma now gone out of his sight , and out of his life creating a ‘Chasm’ between them that cannot be bridgeable. They “shall not go there once again” as ” now March is nigh” , Meaning ‘March is whinny’ : making such a characteristic sound like a horse 🐎 : At “Beeny Cliff” the Chasm, he realised from the separation between him and Emma, shall remain ‘bridgeless’ : : Is it possible to write the story anew !? Afresh !? Again , but differently in a new way !? : “The sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?”: Meaning , he will get around there in the sweet by and by ; eventually in future to understand their loving relationship. : : Hardy gets the answer as concluded in the last Triplet 5 : : : :

Triplet 5: : “What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore, 13
The woman now is – elsewhere – whom the ambling pony bore, 14
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.” 15 : : : : lines 13 To 15 : : : :

The ‘Non – Bridgeable’, “Chasmal beauty” “looms that wild weird western shore” of Atlantic : Making the noisy sound like the one , heard of the looms of the textile Mills : This is suggestive of strange ,uncanny, shadower Sea shore, over that sweetness, yet to happen again. : : Saying the same “Sweet things” will not happen again in the same way or differently. Emma’s presence is nowhere on the Beeny Cliff Top. She “now is – elsewhere -” : “- whom the ambling pony bore,” : Meaning, she will not walk around ( ” ambling” ) here like a racer “pony” horse as if that were to cause to lose interest : : She “neither knows nor cares and will laugh there nevermore.” : ( last line 15 ) : : The same Sweetness of Laughing together on a day in March , Four Decades plus years previously At Beeny Cliff, is now lacking in the material , form and substance at the same spot. Emma had gone for ever. : : The Chasm in the Beeny Cliff stands for ‘Visible Separation’ between Emma and Hardy. It had existed even before Emma’s death. : : : :

“Beeny Cliff” , A March Poem By Thomas Hardy, Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India January 15 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

March: An Ode : Algernon Charles Swinburne : : March Poems : : Month Poems : :

**Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)**
**by George Frederic Watts, 1867**

© National Portrait Gallery, London : : The poet and literary reviewer, was born on 5 April 1837 at 7 Chester Street, London. His father the admiral Charles Henry Swinburne (1797–1877) ‘ridiculed and discouraged’ (Rooksby, 17) Swinburne’s love of poetry when he was a boy. Swinburne had a warm relationship with his mother Lady Jane Henrietta (1809–1896), daughter of George, third earl of Ashburnham , a cultured, maternal woman who had spent time in Italy and was able to teach her children French and Italian. : : Swinburne wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Swinburne wrote about many taboo topics, such as lesbianism, sado-masochism, and anti-theism. His poems have many common motifs, such as the ocean, time, and death. Several historical people are featured in his poems, such as Sappho (“Sapphics”), Anactoria (“Anactoria”), and Catullus (“To Catullus”) : Swinburne in 1892, was considered for the Poet Laureateship when Alfred, Lord Tennyson died. As well as pioneering the aesthetic movement, Swinburne also preceded Oscar Wilde in attracting literary controversy. One of his books, Poems and Ballads (1866), caused one of the biggest outrages in English poetic history. Later that year Swinburne published Notes on Poems and Reviews (1866), a proud defence of his work.: : The most important and conspicuous quality of Swinburne’s work is an intense lyricism. Even early critics, who often took exception to his subject matter, commended his intricately extended and evocative imagery, metrical virtuosity, rich use of assonance and alliteration, and bold, complex rhythms. : : Literary movement
**Decadent movement, pre-Raphaelite**
**Notable work**
**Poems and** Ballads.

March: An Ode
BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
I
Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight;
The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed
Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade
That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night,
Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made,
March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite.

II
And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow,
And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low,
How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that exults to be born
So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness whose laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn?
Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow
As a lover’s that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and tresses yet wasted and torn,
Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her spirit the sense of thee flow.

III
Fain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the wind and the sun have dispelled and consumed,
Those full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose luminous burden the branches implumed
Hung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not as birds are, but petalled as flowers,
Each tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and carved, or a fountain that shines as it showers,
But fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to last till by time or by tempest entombed,
As a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of its doom is no more than an hour’s,
One hour of the sun’s when the warm wind wakes him to wither the snow-flowers that froze as they bloomed.

IV
As the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April subdues thee, and yields up his kingdom to May;
So time overcomes the regret that is born of delight as it passes in passion away,
And leaves but a dream for desire to rejoice in or mourn for with tears or thanksgivings; but thou,
Bright god that art gone from us, maddest and gladdest of months, to what goal hast thou gone from us now?
For somewhere surely the storm of thy laughter that lightens, the beat of thy wings that play,
Must flame as a fire through the world, and the heavens that we know not rejoice in thee: surely thy brow
Hath lost not its radiance of empire, thy spirit the joy that impelled it on quest as for prey.

V
Are thy feet on the ways of the limitless waters, thy wings on the winds of the waste north sea?
Are the fires of the false north dawn over heavens where summer is stormful and strong like thee
Now bright in the sight of thine eyes? are the bastions of icebergs assailed by the blast of thy breath?
Is it March with the wild north world when April is waning? the word that the changed year saith,
Is it echoed to northward with rapture of passion reiterate from spirits triumphant as we
Whose hearts were uplift at the blast of thy clarions as men’s rearisen from a sleep that was death
And kindled to life that was one with the world’s and with thine? hast thou set not the whole world free?

VI
For the breath of thy lips is freedom, and freedom’s the sense of thy spirit, the sound of thy song,
Glad god of the north-east wind, whose heart is as high as the hands of thy kingdom are strong,
Thy kingdom whose empire is terror and joy, twin-featured and fruitful of births divine,
Days lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers, and nights that are drunken with dew for wine,
And sleep not for joy of the stars that deepen and quicken, a denser and fierier throng,
And the world that thy breath bade whiten and tremble rejoices at heart as they strengthen and shine,
And earth gives thanks for the glory bequeathed her, and knows of thy reign that it wrought not wrong.

VII
Thy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face in the crown of the steep sky’s arch,
And the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise of the thorn and the larch:
Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the wildest of winds that blow,
Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow,
And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live woods feel not the frost’s flame parch;
For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt at the heart of the forest aglow,
And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands of the gods of the winds of March.
— ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

“March: An Ode” By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE ( 1837 – 1909 ) is, About Tribute To March : Master Of Winds, Bright Minstrel and Marshal Of Storms. : : Swinburne is a Victorian era Poet. The Poem has 7 Stanzas and 62 lines.

Billy Mills writes about Algernon Charles Swinburne’s March: An Ode , “Swinbourne’s long lines and rich mouthfuls of consonants presage a benign March that is, as he says, “leader and lord of the year that exults to be born”. It seems to be that you should not look to poetry for seasonal or weather-related advice unless you want to end up confused.” ( From theguardian.com : 23 March 2012 ) : : : :

Notes for each of the 7 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India January 14 , 2023 ) : : : : : : : :