Classic and Contemporary Poetry
EPISTLE: TO THE AUTHOR OF 'FESTUS'; ON THE CLASSICK AND ROMANTICK, by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Philip! I know thee not, thy song I know Last Line: Temper'd the strain; apollo calmly smiled. Subject(s): Bailey, Philip James (1816-1902); Poetry & Poets | ||||||||
Philip! I know thee not, thy song I know: It fell upon my ear among the last Destined to fall upon it; but while strength Is left me, I will rise to hail the morn Of the stout-hearted who begin a work Wherein I did but idle at odd hours. The Faeries never tempted me away From higher fountains and severer shades; Their rings allured me not from deeper track Left by Olympick wheel on ampler plain; Yet could I see them and can see them now With pleasurable warmth, and hold in bonds Of brotherhood men whom their gamesome wreath In youth's fresh slumber caught, and still detains. I wear no cestus; my right hand is free To point the road few seem inclined to take. Admonish thou, with me, the starting youth, Ready to seize all nature at one grasp, To mingle earth, sea, sky, woods, cataracts, And make all nations think and speak alike. Some see but sunshine, others see but gloom, Others confound them strangely, furiously; Most have an eye for colour, few for form. Imperfect is the glory to create, Unless on our creation we can look And see that all is good; we then may rest. In every poem train the leading shoot; Break off the suckers. Thought erases thought, As numerous sheep erase each other's print When spungy moss they press or sterile sand. Blades thickly sown want nutriment and droop, Although the seed be sound, and rich the soil; Thus healthy-born ideas, bedded close, By dreaming fondness perish overlain. A rose or sprig of myrtle in the hair Pleases me better than a far-sought gem. I chide the flounce that checks the nimble feet, Abhor the cruel piercer of the ear, And would strike down the chain that cuts in two The beauteous column of the marble neck. Barbarous and false are all such ornaments, Yet such hath poesy in whim put on. Classical hath been deem'd each Roman name Writ on the roll-call of each pedagogue In the same hand, in the same tone pronounced; Yet might five scanty pages well contain All that the Muses in fresh youth would own Between the grave at Tomos, wet with tears Rolling amain down Getick beard unshorn, And that grand priest whose purple shone afar From his own Venice o'er the Adrian sea. We talk of schools..unscholarly; if schools Part the romantick from the classical. The classical like the heroick age Is past; but Poetry may reassume That glorious name with Tartar and with Turk, With Goth or Arab, Sheik or Paladin, And not with Roman and with Greek alone. The name is graven on the workmanship. The trumpet-blast of Marmion never shook The God-built walls of Ilion; yet what shout Of the Achaians swells the hearts so high? Nor fainter is the artillery-roar that booms From Hobenlinden to the Baltick strand. Shakespeare with majesty benign call'd up The obedient classicks from their marble seat, And led them thro' dim glen and sheeny glade, And over precipices, over seas Unknown by mariner, to palaces High-archt, to festival, to dance, to joust, And gave them golden spur and vizor barred, And steeds that Pheidias had turn'd pale to see. The mighty man who open'd Paradise, Harmonious far above Homerick song, Or any song that human ears shall hear, Sometimes was classical and sometimes not: Rome chain'd him down; the younger Italy Dissolved (not fatally) his Samson strength. I leave behind me those who stood around The throne of Shakespeare, sturdy, but unclean, To hurry past the opprobrious courts and lanes Of the loose pipers at the Belial feast, Past mimeobscene and grinder of lampoon.. Away the petty wheel, the callous hand! Goldsmith was classical, and Gray almost; So was poor Collins, heart-bound to Romance: Shelley and Keats, those southern stars, shone higher. Cowper had more variety, more strength, Gentlest of bards! still pitied, still beloved! Shrewder in epigram than polity Was Canning; Frere more graceful; Smith more grand; A genuine poet was the last alone. Romantick, classical, the female hand That chain'd the cruel Ivan down for ever, And follow'd up, rapt in his fiery car, The boy of Casabianca to the skies. Other fair forms breathe round us, which exert With Paphian softness Amazonian power, And sweep in bright array the Attick field. To men turn now, who stand or lately stood With more than Royalty's gilt bays adorn'd. Wordsworth, in sonnet, is a classick too, And on that grass-plot sits at Milton's side; In the long walk he soon is out of breath And wheezes heavier than his friends could wish. Follow his pedlar up the devious rill, And, if you faint not, you are well repaid. Large lumps of precious metal lie engulpht In gravely beds, whence you must delve them out And thirst sometimes and hunger; shudder not To wield the pickaxe and to shake the sieve, Well shall the labour be (though hard) repaid. Too weak for ode and epick, and his gait Somewhat too rural for the tragick pall, Which never was cut out of duffel grey, He fell entangled, "on the grunsel-edge Flat on his face, and shamed his worshippers." Classick in every feature was my friend The genial Southey: none who ruled around Held in such order such a wide domain.. But often too indulgent, too profuse. The ancients see us under them, and grieve That we are parted by a rank morass, Wishing its flowers more delicate and fewer. Abstemious were the Greeks; they never strove To look so fierce: their Muses were sedate, Never obstreperous: you heard no breath Outside the flute; each sound ran clear within. The Fauns might dance, might clap their hands, might shout, Might revel and run riotous; the Nymphs Furtively glanced, and fear'd, or seem'd to fear; Descended on the lightest of light wings, The graceful son of Maia mused apart, Graceful, but strong; he listen'd; he drew nigh; And now with his own lyre and now with voice Temper'd the strain; Apollo calmly smiled. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ENVY OF OTHER PEOPLE'S POEMS by ROBERT HASS THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AS A SONG by ROBERT HASS THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN OXOTA: A SHORT RUSSIAN NOVEL: CHAPTER 192 by LYN HEJINIAN LET ME TELL YOU WHAT A POEM BRINGS by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA JUNE JOURNALS 6/25/88 by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA FOLLOW ROZEWICZ by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA HAVING INTENDED TO MERELY PICK ON AN OIL COMPANY, THE POEM GOES AWRY by HICOK. BOB A FIESOLAN IDYL by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR |
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