[Mary Meriam]

Smile, Death, see I smile as I come to you

Straight from the road and the moor that I leave behind,

............Nothing on earth to me was like this wind-blown space,

.......Nothing was like the road, but at the end there was a vision or a face

......And the eyes were not always kind.

......Smile, death, as you fasten the blades to my feet for me,

On, on let us skate past the sleeping willows dusted with snow;

Fast, fast down the frozen stream, with the moor and the road and the vision behind,

......(Show me your face, why the eyes are kind!)

And we will not speak of life or believe in it or remember it as we go.


- Charlotte Mew

Would anyone like to comment on or interpret this poem? I'd be very interested in your thoughts.



[This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited December 18, 2007).]

[Maryann Corbett]

Let's start with a literal element that's not explicit in the poem but that I would argue is implicit.

Skating on a river is a risky act, especially if one is skating alone. The current keeps the ice from growing as thick as it does on lakes, and the thin spots barely reveal themselves until you're on them and you hear ice the crack.

So the N. is not being morbid. She's acknowledging that she's doing something dangerous, but something that she finds exciting. Knowing a little about the poet, I'm reading the risk and the excitement as related to her lesbianism.

There's probably a lot more to say, but there's a beginning.

[Mary Meriam]

That's an interesting beginning, Maryann. Thanks. I must say, seeing the L word in your comment shocked me, almost as if I were Charlotte being outed.

[Tim Murphy]

I'm unaware of her lesbianism. I am aware that she was considered just a pale imitation of Hardy, but everything I've seen of hers is first rate. I'm not really interested in her sexuality or the danger of skating on a stream in my approach to this poem. I think it's a love letter to death, which implies a great weariness with life. I'm fascinated with the long, loping heterometrical lines, the use of repetition, the profound mastery of rhythm in the thing, which sets us up for what is truly a great last line. I find the poem deepy moving, and I immediately move to the technical question How does this happen? I needn't do that with a sonnet or a villanelle. Thanks for posting this, Mary.

[Mary Meriam]

Originally posted by Tim Murphy: I'm fascinated with the long, loping heterometrical lines, the use of repetition, the profound mastery of rhythm in the thing, which sets us up for what is truly a great last line. I find the poem deepy moving, and I immediately move to the technical question How does this happen? I needn't do that with a sonnet or a villanelle.

Oh, Tim, thanks for expressing so well exactly what I feel about this poem.

Something about the long lines in pairs (hopefully I've reproduced the spacing the way she had it) reminds me of skates.

More thoughts: The rhythm of skating, the metrical-emotional movement, do not strike me as someone discouraged with life, but rather, full of life. However, I do get a sense of terrible isolation and coldness, as if her only friend is death.




[This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited December 19, 2007).]

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

Originally posted by Tim Murphy:
I think it's a love letter to death, which implies a great weariness with life.

I couldn't say it better than Tim. This was how I interepreted the poem. I didn't read any sexuality into it (though it wouldn't be the first time I missed it this week). It reminded me a bit of Dickinson, the way death is personified and addressed directly, and there's a "we" aspect to the narrator and death as a "pair" that makes me think that death is something she's ready to embrace because life is hard...but I need to spend more time with this poem and think about the images more. It's most certainly beautiful and haunting.

[Mary Meriam]

Thanks, Marybeth. To set the matter, er, straight, Mew was a lesbian. She burned most of her poems, most likely the ones with the dangerous pronouns. In the poems she saved, she adopted a male persona. There's no doubt her life was very hard - hard as ice.

Yes, hard as ice - and the skates are like her pen, inscribing the ice.

[This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited December 19, 2007).]

[John Riley]

Small point.

(Show me your face, why the eyes are kind!)

suggests she's pleasantly surprised.

I don't know if it is a love letter to death, seems more like a first date that is going quite well.

Love that line.

I would like to know if there is a chance she read Dickinson.

John

[Mark Allinson]

Here's the line that grabbed me by the collar:

..Smile, death, as you fasten the blades to my feet for me,

It's not till the following line that we see that the reference is to ice-skating, and the juxtaposition of "blades" and "feet" is startling.

I love it when poems give this sort of whip-lash effect, which would be lost if the skating reference had come first.

The atmosphere of the poem reminds me of so many translations of Chinese "Death Poems" - a tradition of short poems written by Zen and Taoist masters just before their deaths. For instance:

Earth, river, mountain:
Snowflakes melt in air.
How could I have doubted?
Where's north? south? east? west?

- Dangai


Finally out of reach -
No bondage, no dependency,
How calm the ocean,
Towering the Void.

- Tessho

[Mary Meriam]

I'd say there was a chance, John. Emily's poems were published in 1890, so that would have given Charlotte 38 years to find them. It's a heart-warming thought. I'm going to research what Charlotte read.

Mark - that is such a good point about the blades. I remember when I first read the poem (just a few days ago), I was struck by the word blades - what are these blades. Nice Chinese poems - now I want to know if Charlotte read any Chinese poetry.