Oh! I remember something else from this adolescent years. My grandmother who taught literature at the university in the forties, gave me a slim blue black hardbound volume of poems by an English poet, A.E. Housman. I was just starting to get into poetry, but Housman never became a favorite of mine. Anyway, there was a poem in there that resonated.
"Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again."
College was on the horizon and I wondered if there was to be any returning to my small Midwestern town, once I left its cramping quarters..
"That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again."
Well, there is pure nostalgia, eh Michael? Thanks for sharing. I was a fan of Housman ("To an athlete dying young") and other English poets like Wordsworth, Hardy etc. Very lyrical and emotive and pastoral. Back when "poetry" meant something specific!
I love Dylan's "chains" line and have quoted it many times over the years. It used to get me teary eyed! Also stirring to me was the Green Fuse poem of his with
"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever."
I first encountered Thomas in my sixteenth or seventeenth year and it was more transformative than the Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens I was reading. Thanks for your essay!
Thanks for sharing your love of DT Michael. I recall well the green fuse that drives the flower. Sound like we were of a similar tender age when first encountering his genius. After decades of reading Fern Hill, the words still move me. Something very deep there for sure.
I earliest liked haiku and had the peter oauper press collections and then later all of Reginald Byth's books. I remember him effusing over s Chinese poet who wrote what Blyth considered to be the greatest poem ever written. Discussing nostalgia poetry with you, I remembered that the Chinese poem felt nostalgic, but could only remember the line, "Swiftly the years beyond recall". Googling it just now I found it,!
Oh! I remember something else from this adolescent years. My grandmother who taught literature at the university in the forties, gave me a slim blue black hardbound volume of poems by an English poet, A.E. Housman. I was just starting to get into poetry, but Housman never became a favorite of mine. Anyway, there was a poem in there that resonated.
"Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again."
College was on the horizon and I wondered if there was to be any returning to my small Midwestern town, once I left its cramping quarters..
"That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again."
Well, there is pure nostalgia, eh Michael? Thanks for sharing. I was a fan of Housman ("To an athlete dying young") and other English poets like Wordsworth, Hardy etc. Very lyrical and emotive and pastoral. Back when "poetry" meant something specific!
I love Dylan's "chains" line and have quoted it many times over the years. It used to get me teary eyed! Also stirring to me was the Green Fuse poem of his with
"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever."
I first encountered Thomas in my sixteenth or seventeenth year and it was more transformative than the Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens I was reading. Thanks for your essay!
Thanks for sharing your love of DT Michael. I recall well the green fuse that drives the flower. Sound like we were of a similar tender age when first encountering his genius. After decades of reading Fern Hill, the words still move me. Something very deep there for sure.
I think we may both still be capable of being moved..a good thing, if so!
I earliest liked haiku and had the peter oauper press collections and then later all of Reginald Byth's books. I remember him effusing over s Chinese poet who wrote what Blyth considered to be the greatest poem ever written. Discussing nostalgia poetry with you, I remembered that the Chinese poem felt nostalgic, but could only remember the line, "Swiftly the years beyond recall". Googling it just now I found it,!
"Swiftly the years, beyond recall,
Solemn the stillness of this fair morning.
I will clothe myself in spring-clothing
And visit the slopes of the Eastern Hill.
By the mountain-stream a mist hovers,
Hovers a moment, then scatters.
There comes a wind blowing from the south
That brushes the fields of new corn.".
Blyth thought the world of this poem.
Great! Thanks for sharing.