Hi Gary,
This is an amazing poem! It even echoes the phrasings of the start of the
last century! Thomas is a poet I don't often browse through (but I recall
his poem "After Rain" - it's class). It captures, I sense, the troubled mind
of the guy and the relentlessness and chill of the rain. Yeh. But...
"Helpless among the living and the dead,
>Like a cold water among broken reeds,
>Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
I can't quite get my mind to accept "like a cold water" becasuse the "a"
seems odd to me. And, I too, wonder if "myriad" is really needed. Less
flowery, poetic, words are around that won't stop a contemporary (British)
poetry reader in their tracks!
Minor details in a major poem!
Bob
>From: Gary B <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Listen to the war drums: Edward Thomas
>Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 10:07:36 -0700
>
>Killed in 1917 at Arras.
>
>Rain
>
>Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
>On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
>Remembering again that I shall die
>And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
>For washing me cleaner than I have been
>Since I was born into this solitude.
>Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
>But here I pray that none whom once I loved
>Is dying to-night or lying still awake
>Solitary, listening to the rain,
>Either in pain or thus in sympathy
>Helpless among the living and the dead,
>Like a cold water among broken reeds,
>Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
>Like me who have no love which this wild rain
>Has not dissolved except the love of death,
>If love it be for what is perfect and
>Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
>
>
>Sept Suzanne and new Centrum at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html
>
>*New* Wild/Eliot Hyperpoem at: http://wildhyper.homestead.com/front.html
>
>Poets for Peace. ˇPoemas sí, balas no!
_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
|
