I lived in Greenfield for about a year in the '70s and
worked at a local nursing home, but never got to the
cemetery. We (my then husband) didn't find much to do
in Greenfield, so we'd go to the Bridge of Flowers or
the Sweet Heart Tearoom (a wonderful restaurant) in
Sherburne (sp?) Falls. It was that year that I met
Anne Sexton and joined her summer workshop, which
always ended with a swim in her pool. She died about a
year later, inspiring my angry poem "Lady Suicide's
Lament."
Candice
--- Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Green River Cemetery seems equally conventional
> to me, though with a far lighter hand than poems
> on similar themes by Longfellow. I can see what
> Tennyson appreciated. The sonnets read like
> precursors of the confessional school.
>
> When I lived in western Massachussets I used to
> drive up to Greenfield often. A 19th century mill
> town that was just becoming mildly prosperous
> again after better than half a century of decay,
> bounded on the east by a long, high ridge running
> north-south. Very pretty. The cemetery is also
> pleasant--it was on my route.
>
> Did Tuckerman have anything to do with the ravine?
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> At 05:59 PM 7/2/2007, you wrote:
> >Hi Joe,
> >
> >I think the Green River poem is superb, especially
> its
> >last stanza and unexpected last line.
> >
> >Maybe others will like the sonnets, but I don't.
> They
> >seem too conventional even for their time.
> >
> >Candice
> >
> >
> >
> >--- joe green <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > > Some Tuckerman poems. I have a version of "The
> > > Cricket" edited by Ben but he told me it is
> > > classified.
> > >
> > > THREE SONNETS
> > >
> > > But unto him came swift calamity
> > > In the sweet springtime when his beds were
> green;
> > > And my heart waited, trustfully serene,
> > > For the new blossom on my household tree.
> > > But flowers and gods and quaint philosophy
> > > Are poor, in truth, to fill the empty place;
> > > Nor any joy nor season's jollity
> > > Can aught indeed avail to grace our grief.
> > > Can spring return to him a brother's face,
> > > Or bring my darling back to me—to me?
> > > Undimmed the May went on with bird and bower;
> > > The summer filled and faded like a flower;
> > > But rainy autumn and the red-turned leaf
> > > Found us at tears and wept for company.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Each common object too, the house, the grove,
> > > The street, the face, the ware in the window,
> seems
> > > Alien and sad, the wreck of perished dreams;
> > > Painfully present, yet remote in love.
> > > The day goes down in rain, the winds blow wide.
> > > I leave the town; I climb the mountain side,
> > > Striving from stumps and stones to wring relief,
> > > And in the senseless anger of my grief,
> > > I rave and weep, I roar to the unmoved skies;
> > > But the wild tempest carries away my cries.
> > > Then back I turn to hide my face in sleep,
> > > Again with dawn the same dull round to sweep,
> > > And buy and sell and prate and laugh and chide,
> > > As if she had not lived, or had not died.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > And so, as this great sphere (now turning slow
> > > Up to the light from that abyss of stars,
> > > Now wheeling into gloom through sunset bars)—
> > > With all its elements of form and flow,
> > > And life in life; where crowned, yet blind, must
> go
> > > The sensible king,—is but an Unity
> > > Compressed of motes impossible to know;
> > > Which worldlike yet in deep analogy,
> > > Have distance, march, dimension, and degree;
> > > So the round earth—which we the world do call—
> > > Is but a grain in that that mightiest swells,
> > > Whereof the stars of light are particles,
> > > As ultimate atoms of one infinite Ball,
> > > On which God moves, and treads beneath his feet
> the
> > > All!
> > >
> > >
> > > GREEN RIVER CEMETERY
> > > DEDICATION HYMN
> > >
> > > Beside the River's dark green flow,
> > > Here, where the pine trees weep,
> > > Red Autumn's winds will coldly blow
> > > Above their dreamless sleep:
> > >
> > > Their sleep, for whom with prayerful breath
> > > We've put apart today
> > > This spot, for shadowed walks of Death,
> > > And gardens of decay.
> > >
> > > This crumbling bank with Autumn crowned,
> > > These pining woodland ways,
> > > Seem now no longer common ground;
> > > But each in turn conveys
> > >
> > > A saddened sense of something more:
> > > Is it the dying year?
> > > Or a dim shadow, sent before,
> > > Of the next gathering here?
> > >
> > > Is it that He, the silent Power,
> > > Has now assumed the place
> > > And drunk the light of morning's house,
> > > The life of Nature's grace?
> > >
> > > Not so-the spot is beautiful,
> > > And holy is the sod;
> > > Tis we are faint, our eyes are dull;
> > > All else is fair in God.
> > >
> > > So let them lie, their graves bedecked,
> > > Whose bones these shades invest,
> > > Nor grief deny, nor fear suspect,
> > > The beauty of their rest.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------
> > > 8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time
> > > with theYahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut.
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>____________________________________________________________________________________
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>
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