Monday, April 28, 2014

Pilgrimage of poems: Furnished souls

Yes, okay—I’ve already given you a poem by e.e. cummings this month. But that was for the series on poetry from the First World War.

Now I’m giving you a couple just because they’re wonderful.

As far as cummings goes, “All in green went my love riding” is positively un-cummings. It uses capitalization and standard poem format. And punctuation. It’s lyrical and ordered, anomalous from most of his other work. It was published in 1916, when he was 22, so it was before he started pushing the format envelope.

“All in green went my love riding”

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.

Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.

Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.

Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.

Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.

Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.

Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.

Four tall stags at the green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

Speaking as someone who’s read a lot of medieval poetry, this strongly resembles the world you find there—the beloved all in green, the natural setting, the deer, the hunting dogs as a sort of refrain, the lover struck dead with love. Definitely medieval.

Compare the lyrical lady of “All in green” with the ones in “the Cambridge Ladies”. Shallow, useless, brittle—you do not want to know these women. It’s hard to pinpoint the most damning modifier here—possibly “comfortable minds”; Jeez—is there anything worse than that?

“the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls”

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

But you see why I keep coming back to cummings. He’s been with me since high school; I just cannot get enough of him.


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