Anyone for Lawn Tennyson? [with George Green]

George Green reminds us that today (August 6) is the 200th birthday of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet laureate, author of "Ulysses" and "Tithonus," "In Memoriam" and "Idylls of the King," who smoked strong pipe tobacco, had a great ear and was a natural at melodious blank verse, stoutly affirmed Victorian pieties but let a lot of his doubt leak through. (The opinions in the previous sentence are mine.) George thinks that "The Kraken" would serve us well here. -- DL

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
                                                       (1830)

I'd like to take this opportunity to put in a word for Enoch Arden. In Tennyson's time it was his most popular poem, and it's the only modern poem besides Eugene Onegin to be made into a movie. The last two lines are in The Stuffed Owl, and they belong there, but so what? He needed a workshop. What's the big deal? The last lines don't ruin the whole poem. 

--George Green

 

Comments

[Emma Trelles]

Thanks; I haven't read "The Kraken" in a long time. But this morning, I serendipitously read "Circumstance."

Two children in two neighbour villages
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas;
Two strangers meeting at a festival;
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall;
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease;
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church tower,
Wash'd with still rains and daisy blossomed;
Two children in one hamlet born and bred;
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.

[DL]

Beautiful lines, Emma. Thank you! BTW: to whom, among literary Emmas, do you feel closer, Emma Bovary or Jane Austen's Emma?

[Emma Trelles]

Hmmm, I suppose I was more like the dramatic Ms. Bovary in my twenties, although certainly not as tragic. Now if I had to choose, I'd say I lean more towards the spirited, and at times clueless, Ms. Woodhouse.

[DL]

The healthier choice!

[Teuta Sadiku]

Eh, my country,
Full of sun and no light!
Pagan and throne for the ancient gods.
We live among high mountains,
where we hold the sky with our hands
and again:
into what abyss we have fallen!

Eh,, my country
the colors of Ion,
the scents of orange blossoms
I close them
in a pod of beans.

And I feel
rich in your poverty,
free
in captivity
poor in your dagger.

Ah, my beloved country
they say true love is expensive,
but the pain you cause me
it drives me crazy
Teuta Sadiku