IB English 7-8, HL
Poems for Detailed Study
John Donne
T. S. Eliot
Sylvia Plath
Eavan Boland
October 20 10
Hegert
. .
!&hn Donne ( 1572-1 63 1) *
,.:
..- - ...
-.- .-- -..
SON^
......
.
.
....c
:Go and catch a falling star,
;:$;,Get
with child a mandrake root,
. - .. .
:Xell me where all past years are,
::: Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
!T&ch
.
me ,%-hearme-a_G?inging,
';I..Or to keep off envy's stinging,
.
Andfind
.:;
What wind
,. .
-.Servesto advance an honest mind.
'
,?..
.I:
If thou be'st borne to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Kde ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
: ~ h o uwhen
,
thou retum'st, wilt tell me
A11 strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
Nowhere
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou findst one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were MeetYet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were m e , when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
5.
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
1633
'
A Valediction:Forbiddin. Mourning
As virtuous men pass mildly away, . .
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say no:
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
Tiere-prohation" of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of the earW brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres:
Though greater Far, is innocent.
Dull sublunaryo lovers' love
(Whose s o d is sense) cannot admit
Absgce, because it doth remove
Those things which elementedo it.
But we, by a love so much refined
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurMOof the mind,
Care less eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold0 to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stifftwin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fived foot, make: no show
T o move, but doth if the other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and harkens after it,
And grows erect a9 that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to m e , ~ h omust,
Like the other foot, obliquelf run;
Thy firmness makes my circle jus-t,"
And makes me end where I begun.
THE
ar a wid6 a&
makw itpdccr
KECEPTLVE READER
1. .According to Izaak Walton, a contemporary biographer, Donne wrote this
farewell poem for his wife before leaving on a iournev to France. What is the connection
between the parting of the spouses and the death scene described in the first stanzaz
(Why d o you think Dome's conternpoaries believed that good, virtuous people would
have a "mild* or gentle death?)
2. If outsiders are the "laity," what does the implied comparison make the two
people in love?
3. Donne's contemporaries beIieved that the heavens were perfect (reflecting the
perfection of God). Everything "sublunaryn-below the moon, on this &was
imperfect, subject to decay and death. Furthermore, the planets moving in orbit around
the earth in the geocenuic, earth-centered Ptolemaic view of the universe were attached
to spheres of crystal. At times these moved or shook, accounting for apparent irregularities in the astronomers' calculations. How does Donne draw on these contempomy
.- . .... .
,. . .- . . - belief in t h i s . p ~ ?
4. Probably the besr-known example of fiwrative lanwage in English literature is
the comparison of the rwo people in love to the pair of "twin compassesn used in
geometry classes to draw a circle. What does this device look like? How does it work?
HOWdoes D o m e pur it to work in this poem?
35
Poetry Foundation
The Sun Rising
ANNOTATIONS
BY JOHN DONNE
1. prentices ap
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
2.
the king w i l l ride, the king will ride
James I,the king of England at the
time of Donne's writing, had a known
passion for riding horses and hunting
3.
rags of time. rags of time a figure o
speech meaning that such things are
passing and immaterial. Donne uses
this phrase in one of his sermons.
4.
reverend worthy of high respect
5.
both th' Indias of spice and mine
both th' Indias of spice and mine the
East Indies for spices and the West
Indies for gold. I n a 1623 letter to Sir
Robert Ker, Donne wrote: "Your way
into Spain was Eastward, and that is
the way to the land of Perfumes and
Spices; their way hither is Westward,
and that is the way to the land of Gol
and of Mynes." [John Donne: Selectec
Prose. Edited by Helen Gardner and
Timothy Healy, p. 1551
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must t o thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prenticesl,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will rideC2
Call country ants t o harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the raas of time.3
Thy beams, so reverend4 and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
Icould eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that Iwould n o t lose her sight so long;
I f her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
I
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine5
Be where thou leftst them, o r lie here with me.
Ask for those kings y h o m thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear: All here in one bed lay.
6. alchemy figuratively, not the real
thing. The speculative practice of.
involved a search for chemically
turning base metals, such as iron, int,
highly valuable metals, such as gold.
She's all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared t o this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemv6.
Thou, sun, a r t half as happy as we,
I n that the world's contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here t o us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How does Donne's speaker feel about the coming of dawn? Which words o r phrases best suggest his attitude?
2. How does Donne compare the sun t o a person? I n his personification, what sort of person does Donne suggest the sun is? I s
his comparison reasonable or absurd? Why o r why not?
3. Donne begins the poem by telling t h e sun to go bother "late school boys" and "country ants" because it can have no effect o n
love. Where else does Donne use wit, irony, o r wordplay in the poem? What effect does it have on your understanding of the
poem's message?
What relationship exists between the public and private spheres in the poem, and how does Donne distinguish between them?
Which realm does Donne seem t o privilege?
A L e a r e upon the Shadow
. . . . -..- - .-
..- . .-
Stand still, and I will read to thee
A Icaure, love, in k c ' s philosophy.
... . . ..
These three hours that we have spent
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced;
But, no@ the sun is just above our head,
We-do those shadows0 tread,
And to brave dearness aU things are reduced.
... .:--So,
whilsto our infint loves did grow,
Disguises did and shadows flow
From us and our cares: but now 'tis not so.
5
now that
mr tkmc hadaws
'
That love hath not attained the highest degree
Which is still diligent lest others0 see.
~ x c e our
~ t loves
~ at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Other%.these which come behind
Wd work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint and westwardly decline,
T o me thou0 &1y thine,
And I to thee mine, actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer dl the day;
But oh, love's day is short, if love decay.
'
Love is a growing or 111 constant light,
And his fist minute afier noon is night.
--
THE RECEPTNE READER
1. The shadow cast by the sun becomes the central metaphor in this poem. What
were the shadows in the morning? (Wharwere the "cares" and "disguises" of the
morning?) What happens to the shadows at high noon? What is the crucial difference
between the morning shadows and the shadows afrer noon?
2. How'does this poem ask you to revise your usual sense of the daily cycle? What
h'iliar associadons of dawn, noon, and night does the poem preserve? How does it
depart from them?
Preludes
TIS Eliot
I
The thousand sordid images
Ofwhich your soul was constituted;
The winter evening d e s down
They flickered against the ceiling.
With smell of steaks in passageways.
And when all the world came back
Six o'clock.
And the light crept up between the shutters
,.
The bumt-out ends of smoky days.
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
And now a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps
You had such a.vision of the street
Ofwithered leaves about your feet
As the street hardly understands;
And newspapers from vacant lots;
Sitting along the bed's edge, where
The showers beat
You curled the papers from your hair,
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
Or clasped the yellow soles o f feet
And at the comer ofthe street
In the palms of both soiled hands.
A lonely cabhorse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
The morning comes to consciousness
Or trampled by insistent feet
Of faint stale smells of beer
At four and five and six o'clock;
From the sawdust-trampled street
And short square k g e r s stuffing pipes,
With all its muddy feet that press
And evening newspapers, and eyes
To early coffee-stands.
Assured of certain certainties,
With tbe other masquerades
The conscience of a blackened street
That times resumes,
Impatient to assume the world.
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
I am moved by fancies that are curled
In a thousand firnished rooms.
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suilkring thiug.
You tossed a blanket fiom the bed,
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh,
You lay upon your back and waited;
The worlds revohre like ancient women
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
Eliot's "Preludes"
[Section I]
1.
What is this section's dominant mood?
Which specific word choices (diction) of Eliot's create and sustain this mood?
2.
What figure of speech is used in the first line?
3.
How would you describe Eliot's use of rhythm and rhyme in this section?
-
What purpose does this rhythmlrhyme serve? In other words, how does Eliot use
rhythm and rhyme to advance meanings, ideas, etc.?
[Section Tit]
.-
. . .
. - ....
4.
What does this section add to the first?
5.
In the first line of this section Eliot again uses personification. How so?
What is ironic about this use of personification given the figure of speech he
uses with "feet" and "hands" in later lines?
Why do you think he "humanizes" the city but "de-humanizes" the people?
[Section 111)
6.
This section introduces "you" (second person.). Why?
Characterize this "you." Le., what is the 'you" like?
7.
Three-fourths of the way through this section Eliot writes:
"You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands"
Explain this vision. What does the 'you' realize? Why can't the street
"understand" the vision?
[Section IV]
8.
T o whom does 'Ws" refer in the first line?
9.
What kind of feeling is created by the image of a "soul stretched tight"?
10.
What are the "certain certainties" that the "kyes" are "assured of'?
11.
Interpret: 'The conscience of a'blackened street / Impatient to assume the
world."
-
12. The second stanza of this section finally introduces a first person speaker. Who is
this 'TI? Why does Eliot wait so long to ilitroduce the IT'?
-
What, exactly, moves the persona? In other words, what is the "infinitely gentle /
Infinitely suffering thing"?
13.
..
In the third stanza, what kind of 'laugh" is meant? How do you know?
14. Explain the simile: 'The worlds revolve like ancient women / Gathering fuel in
..- - ..- . - -- .--.- . .
..vacant lots." -.
'
-.
Why "worlds" and not "world"? Why "ancient" instead of "old"? What does
"revolve" suggest? What kind of "fuel" is being gathered? What does Eliot mean
to suggest by having the women find the fuel in "vacant lots"? How does that fit
the rest of the poem? .1
OVERALL
1.
Fixplain the poem's title. What is a prelude? To what are these sections [or this
poem] prelude?
2.
How is this poem different from most "traditional" poetry?
3.
What attitude toward the modem world is represented here?
What is the problem with the modem world? Why?
Does the poem seem to make any assessment about what the future might
hold? Is there any hope? Why or why not?
4.
What cpestions do vou have?
.
.-
- -. ...
Journey of the ~ a ~ i '
"A cold coming we bad of it,
Jost the wont thne of the year
.
For a journey, and WJI a longjoumey:
The ways decp aod the w d e r sbsrp,
The very dead of ~ i n t r r . ~
And tfie a m d s galled, sore-footed,r d h t q ,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were timeswe mgretted
Thearmrmsrpaarmsi~tfiB~ces,
Aad tht silken @is bringing sheabet
Thcn the camd men cursing and grumbling
And mnningaway, and wanting their E q w and women,
And the nigh-firesgoing out,and the lack of shelters,
And the cities W
e and the towDs
~~
And the villages d i e and dm-ginghigh prices
A hard time we had ofit.
At the end we preferred t o eve1 all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
Thai this was an fony.
Then at dawn we came down to a temptrate valley,
Wet, belaw the snow line, smelling of vtgetatioq
With a nmning stream and a water-min beating the darkness,
Andthreetrason thelow sky,'
Aod an old white home galloping away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tawan w3h vinsleaves over the htek
'
-
'
Tbe poem rccmatesthe rec01lectionr ofoae afthe tbree "wisemen" (magi1 who, guided by tbc star, hed ~ B D Gto
Betblehern to wihKss tbe birth of Chist ( s e e m ,chapter 2).
The fhst five koftbe poem are adapted fiom tbe sermon preached at Christmas, 1622, by Bishop Lancelot
'
Andrews
'The image dudesto the ihree crossesofthe Cruci&xjoqas f i m h liaeP amtaindear mggdtmsof tbe R
soldiers dicing for Christ's robe, as well as the pieces of d v a paid to hubs fbr bebgring U n i t In additioq
otba biblical allusiom in Wneleirver,over the lintel'@aod 'Wa empty wiaaJlb'nsn
readen
m
IB English 7, HL
Hegert
"Journey of the Magi"
Study Questions
Prewrite: What connotations and expectations does the title of the poem create for you?
Section 1
1. What is the tone of this section and what diction helps to create and sustain that
tone. (by the way, look up the multiple meanings of "galled" and "refractory7' and
"dispensation" (which appears in the third section).
2. The magi, according to the Bible, are on a divine mission, led by a star of heaven.
But what does the speaker focus on in this section? In other words, with what
does Eliot balance their divine mission?
3. Five lines begin with the conjunction "And" and the word is used within a number
of other lines. What is the effect ofthis repeated use and prominent placement of
"and"?
4. What do you make of the "voices singing in our ears, saying / That this was all
folly"? What or whose voices is Eliot referring to? What does it suggest about the
state of mind of the magi.
Section 2
5. What's the importance of the first word of this section, "Then"? What is signaled
in the poem?
6. What objects, symbols or images associated with the Bible and the life of Jesus
Christ do you find in the section? What Eliot's purpose in including these
allusions?
7. Again, what is the divine mission of the magi balanced against in this section of
the poem?
8. What would you say about the reaction of the magi when they at last find the
place, and child, they have been being led toward?
Section 3
9. What does the first line of the section tell us as readers and why is it important?
10. What pronoun does the speaker use for the first time in this section? What's the
importance?
11. What is the major question of posed by the speaker? Do you think he comes to a
satisfactory answer?
12. In Persia (to the east), magi were members of an ancient priestly caste who
presided over religions very different from Judeo-Christian monotheism. How
might this help explain the speaker's reaction after the magi return to their
kingdoms in the east?
13. What's your interpretation of the significance and meaning of the final line, "I
should be glad of another death." To what is the speaker referring? Why is it
important.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufroek
T. S. Eliot
S'io credesse che mia riqnmlxjhsse
A permnu che mai twnarre al&,
Q u e s t a m srmiasemapiu scme
Ma perciocche giatnmai d queslo~orsrZo
Non t o m vivo SJcun, s'i'ocio il wm,
Senza tema &hgiiia ti rispo&'
Letusgothen, youand1,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized2upon a table;
Let us go, through certain halfdeserted street%
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust3restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streetsthat bllow like a tedious argument
Ofinsidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make ow visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Mi~helan~elo.~
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that fitllsfiom chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the bouse, and fell asleep.
'
A passage from Dante Alighiesi's Infemo (Canto 27, lines 61-66) spokea by Guido da Montefeltro in response to
the questions of Dante, whom Guido supposes is dead, since he is in Hell. The flame in which Guido is encased
vibrates as he speaks: '?f I thought that I was replying to someone who would ever go to the world, this flame would
cease to flicker. But since no one ever returns h m these depths alive, if what I've heard is true, I will answa you
without fear of infamyY"
i.e., less real.
Anesthetized with ether, but also suggesting "made
3
Cheap bars and restaurants used to spread sawdust on the floor to soak up spilled beer, etc.
The great Italian Renaissance artist.
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.
T h how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
'
And I have b w n the arms already, known them allArms that are braceleted and white and bare
put in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it pafume fiom a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie dong a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
.....
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? .
1should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefilly!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired.
. . or it malingers,
Strethed on the floor, here beside you and me.
should I, after tea and cakes and ices,'
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though 1have wept and hted, wept and prayed,
Tkough I have seen my head b o w slightly bald] brought in upon a
I am no p r o p h e l 4 hm's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternd Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short. I was a h i d .
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cup, the m a l a d e , the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
* Cookies and ice cream.
L i e John the Baptist (see Matthew 14: 1-12)
[continued ...I
,Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To d l it toward sow overwhelming queatioq
To say;"I am ~azaru4'come fiom the dead
Come back to tell you 1,
I MI tell you allnIf one, settling a pillow by her head,
Shwld say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor-
And thiq and so much more?-
It is impossible to say just what I
But as if a magic lanternBthrew the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And tuning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I m m t . at all."
No! I am not Prim ~ s m l e nor
c was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, stad a scene or WO,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy t d ,
Defesentd, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At times, indeed, almost ridiculousAlmost, at times, the Fool.
120
[continued ...I
'Aman raised fiom death by Jesus (see lohn 11:l-44).
Early form of slide projector.
Shakespeare's sensitive, brooding hero known for his melancholy greatness.
Igrowold. ..Jgrowold.
..
I shall wear the bottom of my tr-
rolled.
Shall 1 part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers,and walk upon the beach
I have heard the meamaids singink each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black
We have lingered in the chsmbers of the sea
By sea-girlswreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Ariel
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.
/
.
God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees! -The furrow
5
'
Splits and passes, sister to
T h e brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,
Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks-
I
Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shr)dows.
Something else
.
I5
Hauls me through airThighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.
White
Godiva, I unpeelDead hands, dead stringencies.
And now I
Foam to.wheat, a glitter of seas.
T h e child's cry
Melts in the wall.
And. I
Am the arrow,
T h e dew that, flies
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning.
27
October
I 962
5ylvi9 914*
Lady Lazarus
I have done it again.'
One year in every ten
I manage it-A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
5
i
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
1-C
I
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
I
'
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
ho
This is Number Three.
What a trash
T o annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments. '
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and footT h e big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
3O
These.are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I w2s ten.
I t was an.accident.
The second time I meant
T o last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
.
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
35
-
w
Dying
1s an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical .
50
Comeback in broad day
T o the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout :
'A miracle !'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, t h ~ r eis a charge
For the hearing of my heartIt really goes.
b0
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
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.
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Heir Enemy.
I'
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I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure
baby
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That melts to a shriek.
I turn and bum.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ashYou poke and.&.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
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A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware ,
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
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Two Sisters of ' ~ e r s e ~ h o n e
Two girls there are: within the house
One sits; the other, without.
Daylong a duet of shade and light
Plays between these.
In her dark wainscoted room
T h e first works problems on
A mathematical machine.
Dry ticks mark time
As she calculates each sum.
At this barren enterprise
Rat-shrewd go her squint eyes,
Root-pale her meager frame.
'
Bronzed as,karth,.the second lies,
Hearing.ticks blown gold
Like pollen on bright air. Lu!led
Near a bed of poppies,
She sees how their red silk flare
Of petaled blood
Burns open to sun's blade.
On that green altar
Freely become sun's bride, the latter
Grows quick with seed.
Grass-couched in her labor's pride,
She bears a king. Turned bitter
And sallow as any lemon,
T h e other, wry virgin to the last,
Goes graveward with flesh laid waste,
Worm-husbanded, yet no woman.
15
-20
What We Lost
Eavan Boland
It is a winter afternoon.
Believe it, what we lost is here in this room
The hills are fiozen. Light is failing.
on this veiled evening.
The distance is a crystal earshot.
The woman finishes. The story ends.
A woman is mending linen in her kitchen.
The child, who is my mother, gets up, moves away.
She is a countrywoman.
In the winter air, unheard, ushared,
Behind her cupboard dook she hangs sprigged,
the moment happens, hangs f ~ eleads
,
nowhere.
stove-dried lavender in muslin.
The light will fail and the room darken,
Her letters and mementos and memories
the child fall asleep and the story be forgotten.
are packeted in satin at the back with
The fields are dark already.
gaberdine and worsted and
The frail connections have been made and are broken.
the cambric she has made into bodiceu,
-The dumb-show of legend has become language,
the good tobacco silk for Sunday Mass.
is becoming silence and who will lolow that once
She is sewing in the kitchen.
words were possibilities and disappointments,
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The sugar-feel of flax is in her hands.
were scented closets filIed witb love letters
Dusk. And the candles brought in then.
and memories and lavender hemmed into muslin,
One by one. And the quiet sweat of wax.
stored in sachets, aired in bed linen;
There is a child at her side.
and traveled silks and the tones of cotton
The tea is poured, the stitching put down.
butened into bodices, subtly shaped by breathing;
The child grows still, sensing something of importance.
were the rooms of childhood with their griefless peace,
The woman settles and begins her story.
their hands and whispers, their candles weeping brightly?
The Black Lace Fan M y Mother Gave Me
by Eavan Boland
It was the &st gift he ever gave her.
buying it for five francs in the G M e s
in prewar Paris
It was ssttf2ing-
A starless drought made t h e ntghts stormy.
They stayed in the city for the summer.
They met in cafes. She was always ear@.
He was late. That evening he was later.
They wrapped the fan. He l o ~ k e d.at his watch.
She looked down the Boulevard des Capucfnes.
She ordered more coffee.S h e stood up.
The streets were emptying- The heat was killing.
She thought the distance smelled of rain and Hghtning.
These are wild roses, appliqued on silk by hand.
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2
darkly picked, stitched boldiy. quickly.
The rest Is tortoiseshell and has the reticent.
clear patfence of its element. It is
a worn-?ut"underwater bulllon and it keeps.
even now, an inference of its vioIation.
The lace is overcast as if the weather
It opened for and offset had enfend It.
The past f s anempty cafe terrace.
An airless dusk before thunder. A man running.
And no way now,to know what happened thennone at all-unless,
of course, you improvise:
the blackbird on this first sultry morning,
in summer. fhdlng buds, worms. fruit,
feels the heat. Suddenly she puts out her wingthe whole, full. flirtatious span of It.
The Mddng of an Irish Goddess
by Eavan Boland
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~ e r k went
s
to hell
with no sense of time.
When she looked back
all that she could see was
the arteries of sflvw in the rock.
the diligence of rivers always a t one level.
wheat at one. h~ight.'
leaves of a single color.
the same distance in the usual light: '
a seasonless. unscarred earth.
But I need m e rnv fl&h ahd that hfstorytij' make the
'
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- In my MY.
nelther young now nor fertile.
and with the marks of childbirth
still on it.
in my @Stures-the way I pin my hair to hide
the stitched. healed blemish of a scarmust be
a n accurate lnscrlption
..- -
:.:,of that agon-x
.
b.
,
the failed harvests.
'-'
the fields rotting to the hodzon,
the chUdren devoured by their mothers
have said.
:
There is no other way:
Myth is the wound we leave
in the time we havewhich In my case I s this
Mach evening
at the foothills of the Dublin mountains.
across which the Ughts have changed all day.
holding u p my hand.
sickle-shaped. to my .eyes
to pick out
my own daughter from
dl the other children In the &stance:
her back turned to me.
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