Poetry, April 28

[jade_sabre]

Today, by request of urthstripe321, we have us some Keats.  To be honest, he was a pretty fierce Romantic, and I can only take so many sonnets about the beauty of Nature before I have to go gag myself with a spoon (I feel, though, that it's not so much the Romanticism as it is the Sentimentalism of the poetry that bothers me), but I found two sonnets that I did rather like, one in honor of the fact that it is/almost is finals time for many people, and one in honor of my strange strange mood from the other night:




To Sleep
O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,--
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.




To Solitude
O solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—
Nature's observatory—whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

Comments

[urthstripe321.livejournal.com]

I guess I let it slide for Keats a little because he had every right to write like emo hate poetry about how much life sucks, but instead he focused on the beauty of everything.

And it is pretty. He was good.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

Hm, I can see that. Still, it's a little too sweet for me. Good, yes, for its kind, but...it's just very stylistic, I guess? And I'm not always into that?

I really can't explain why I'm not that fond of the Romantics; ideally we think along the exact same lines, but something gets lost in translation.

[beautyinsleep.livejournal.com]

(Sleep and solitude? Yes please!) These kind of poems hurt my brain for some reason, the words run together and I end up skipping to the last few lines. Could be just the timing on my part, though--with finals and sleep deprivation, my mind is completely gone.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

(:-D) Yeah, that's kinda the way they were for me. 'course I'd also just spent a while analyzing Emily Dickinson, and didn't feel like doing a close reading. :-\ but they're still kinda pretty...

[jyms.livejournal.com]

i thought i liked Keats until i read the poems here. then i started wondering why. crystal rivers and poppies and conscience burrowing like a mole do drive me somewhat mad. and his sentences are rather long - it's hard to keep the line of thought there. well if you get past all the superfluous pretty things there should be something pretty inside. :D

[buella-pearl.livejournal.com]

Finals? What...there's like a month of class left!