The present volume has another goal. By bringing together very different poems, from very different times and places, that address themselves to aspects of human life, it tries to uncover likenesses and correspondences to the times we live in. In the reign of James I, Ben Jonson invited a friend to supper while assuring him that there would be no government spies among the guests to eavesdrop on their conversation. During the draft riots of 1863 Herman Melville contemplated the breakdown of law and order from a rooftop in lower Manhattan and wondered about the future of democracy if it could be protected only by martial force. On the eve of World War I, Thomas Hardy imagined the dead of England woken by artillery barrages fired in preparation for war. Any of these poems might be read with resonance today. And then there are the more intimate correspondences. For an ancient Egyptian poet passion is evoked by water mixed with flour, for a seventeenth-century poet as fire encountering flax. The love consummated by an anonymous medieval writer “under the greenwood tree” is celebrated by Edith Wharton in the early twentieth century in imagery of a railroad station where trains are forever arriving and departing.
Percy Bysshe Shelley—quoted approvingly by Palgrave—thought of the individual poems of different poets as “episodes to that great Poem which all poets, like the cooperating thoughts of one great mind, have built up since the beginning of the world.” This grand Romantic notion actually comes rather close to describing the effect of any anthology, if it is read straight through as if it were the work of a single author.
Connections among poems are to some extent familial. They speak not only to us but among themselves, agreeing or arguing, bring up new instances to confirm or contradict an elder’s formulation, sending messages calm or agitated to those already gone or yet to come. When William Blake wrote that “the poets are in eternity” he was not, I think, alluding to the immortality bestowed by fame. All poems in some sense are written in the same instant. To read them is to enter an unending moment, the distended moment of their conception and composition.
Most poets, like other artists, make an effort to be original. In a culture addicted to novelty, it seems almost a confession of failure not to offer a product that isn’t thoroughly up to the minute, “branded” by a new design concept, a new message, new subject matter. But the fashions of poetry are measured in millennia, not months. The modern English poet Basil Bunting wrote, “Poets are well advised to stick to commonplaces,” and added only half ironically, “which is what most of them do.” In Bunting’s view, poets, even the greatest of them, rarely had anything truly unprecedented to add to the store of human thought and knowledge; their role was rather to seek new ways to conceptualize and express what amounted to the Same Old Thing. A few thousand years earlier, the biblical voice of the Ecclesiast affirmed something similar: “There is no new thing under the sun.”
Similar sentiments have been expressed in most times, in most places. Yet human experience stubbornly resists the notion that it can be reduced to a repetition of what has been already done and already said. The unfolding moment promises a singularity, a uniqueness of fate, an emerging possibility of something altogether untried. That possibility may, as in the budding of friendship or passionate desire, be of a splendid fulfillment; it may equally be of personal disaster, or, in the face of global chaos and environmental degradation, of a catastrophe apocalyptic in scale. In any event the individual is inclined to wonder if anyone could conceivably have witnessed or undergone such things before.
In the collision between a past containing all that was ever thought or spoken and a future not yet imaginable, the poem finds its uneasy birth, looking for a new way to use a language that comes heavy with accumulated associations. The poem just born takes its place among the poems already emerged, each registering the shock of a particular moment. If poetry, in Ezra Pound’s definition, is “news that stays news,” then there is no time limit on its power to illuminate or inform. What the best poems offer is pertinent information about the fact of being alive. They respond to situations that, however remote in space or time, are in some form always going on. The sun that rises to interrupt the lovers in John Donne’s poem is rising right now; the twig broken off by Walt Whitman in Louisiana snaps in our own hand; the slant of winter light to which, in Emily Dickinson’s paradoxical description, “the Landscape listens” lights up the page where we read of it. The poets are in eternity; the poems are here, in the air, in the room, in the world.
Any poem exists not at one point in time but at an infinite number of points, as many as there are readers and occasions to read it, and as many times as a single reader will return to a particular poem, always finding the experience a little bit different each time. Within the singular and finite terms of a human life the poem makes possible a manifold perspective where voices are enabled to converse together. This is a conversation that takes place within the reader, and it is in the act of reading poetry as much as in the act of writing it that the form finds its most perfect fulfillment. It is our hope, in fact, in the interests of expanding that conversation, that readers of this volume will write to the publisher with suggestions for future editions.
The Cycles of Nature
THIS ANTHOLOGY BEGINS, LITERALLY ENOUGH, WITH THE FOUR SEASONS THEMSELVES. IN WEATHER, AS IN HABITAT, POETS FIND A MIRROR OF THEIR OWN BEING IN THE VERY otherness of what is outside them, and in cyclical seasonal alteration they have often found a model of poetic form itself. It is a model based on metamorphosis, of forms changing into their opposites and then changing back, in a fixed order and rhythm that is the world’s meter: what is most fixed is a process of continuous change. The evocation of season may be literal or may have the deepest metaphorical intentions; but in this area, the literal and the metaphorical have a way of coinciding. The seasons are both the symbols and the very substance of our lives.
SPRING
Loveless hearts shall love tomorrow, hearts that have loved shall love anew
From The Vigil of Venus (Pervigilium Veneris)
Loveless hearts shall love tomorrow, hearts that have loved
shall love anew,
Spring is young now, spring is singing, in the spring
the world first grew;
In the spring the birds are wedded, in the springtime
true hearts pair,
Under the rain of her lover’s kisses loose the forest
flings her hair.
Now in shadows of the woodland She that binds all
true loves’ vows,
She shall build them bowers tomorrow of Her own green
myrtle-boughs.
There Dione high enthronèd on her lovers lays
her law —
Loveless hearts shall love tomorrow, hearts that have loved
shall love once more.
ANONYMOUS
LATIN (3RD CENTURY)
TRANSLATED BY F. L. LUCAS
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit;
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Spring, the sweet spring!
THOMAS NASHE
ENGLISH (1567-1601?)
When daisies pied, and violets blue
When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
O word of fear,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
ENGLISH (1564-1616)
Corinna’s Going a-Maying
Get up, get up for shame! the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew-bespangling herb and tree.
Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the east,
Above an hour since; yet you not drest,
Nay! not so much as out of bed?
When all the birds have matins said,
And sung their thankful hymns; ’tis sin,
Nay, profanation to keep in,
Whenas a thousand virgins on this day
Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May.
Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair:
Fear not; the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you:
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.
Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:
And Titan on the eastern hill
Retires himself, or else stands still
Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying:
Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying.
Come, my Corinna, come; and coming, mark
How each field turns a street, each street a park
Made green and trimmed with trees: see how
Devotion gives each house a bough
Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this,
An ark, a tabernacle is,
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see’t?
Come, we’ll abroad: and let’s obey
The proclamation made for May,
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.
There’s not a budding boy or girl this day
But is got up and gone to bring in May.
A deal of youth ere this is come
Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
Some have dispatched their cakes and cream,
Before that we have left to dream:
And some have wept and wooed, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:
Many a green-gown has been given;
Many a kiss, both odd and even;
Many a glance too has been sent
From out the eye, love’s firmament:
Many a jest told of the keys betraying
This night, and locks picked: yet we’re not a-Maying!
Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,
And take the harmless folly of the time!
We shall grow old apace, and die
Before we know our liberty.
Our life is short, and our days run
As fast away as does the sun.
And as a vapour or a drop of rain,
Once lost, can ne’er be found again:
So when or you or I are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
All love, all liking, all delight
Lies drowned with us in endless night.
Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.
ROBERT HERRICK
ENGLISH (1591-1674)
To Daffodils
Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew
Ne’er to be found again.
ROBERT HERRICK
ENGLISH (1591-1674)
The Spring
Now that the Winter’s gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream:
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring:
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long’d-for May.
Now all things smile: only my love doth lour,
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice which still doth hold
Her heart congeal’d, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fireside, but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season: only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.
THOMAS CAREW
ENGLISH (1595?-1639?)
To Spring
O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro’ the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!
Vallies hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavillions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.
Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.
O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languish’d head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee!
WILLIAM BLAKE
ENGLISH (1757-1827)
Lines Written in Early Spring
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
A
nd much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure: —
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
ENGLISH (1770-1850)
Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge —
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
ROBERT BROWNING