[Christopher Mulrooney]

<font="Arial"><font size="4">our canvas</size>

BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POST<font size="2">to Arthur Symons<font size="3">

we take a reading over the hills and far away
etc. count the tergiversating wisdoms
one two three etc.
and so forth

where to go without it
if you descend the page
provokes go up alas
pregnant the magi age

sophistications not a tear
for without a book
to my name withholds
not a predicament

with a severity not unforeknown
it she disappears
the fare foreground


[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited November 10, 2001).]

[Michael Juster]

If you can't do better than this, stay silent.

[Christopher Mulrooney]

A very eloquent remark on this eminent poet, against whom for a century the sting of ignorant criticism seems to have raised battlements of indignation which are nonetheless, I believe, a sham.

[Alan Sullivan]

Christopher, the remark was directed at you. This should have been posted (and lambasted) on the free verse board. Let's hope Alicia stops by soon and excises this thread.

A.S.

[Michael Juster]

Alan is correct, as usual, although I wouldn't even bother reposting this one. It's incoherent drivel.

[Christopher Mulrooney]

That's one way to evade the subject, which is not mine but Arthur Symons' verse.

[Michael Juster]

I think Symons is rolling over in his grave with this tribute poem. Could it be that no one is responding because you haven't communicated an opinion on Symons--or for that matter a hint of a coherent thought? Hmmmm....

[Christopher Mulrooney]

Could be. How would you know?

[A. E. Stallings]

Hi guys--this doesn't look to me like a discussion of Symons or his work--so unless someone cares to post an actual poem of his, I'll close the thread. For those interested in reading some of the the poems: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~simmers/symons1.htm

[Christopher Mulrooney]

This great poem (with its pronounced influence on T.S. Eliot, who modestly speaks only of the French poets in connection with Symons) lays the scene in the first stanza, exhibits l.6 in the second, beautifully turns on the third, and wins a rare bet in the fourth (cp. AS, "Stella Maris").

<font face="Arial"><font size="4">White Heliotrope</size>

<font size="3">The feverish room and that white bed,
The tumbled skirts upon a chair,
The novel flung half-open, where
Hat, hair-pins, puffs, and paints are spread;

The mirror that has sucked your face
Into its secret deep of deeps,
And there mysteriously keeps
Forgotten memories of grace;

And you half dressed and half awake,
Your slant eyes strangely watching me,
And I, who watch you drowsily,
With eyes that, having slept not, ache;

This (need one dread? nay, dare one hope?)
Will rise, a ghost of memory, if
Ever again my handkerchief
Is scented with White Heliotrope.



[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited November 12, 2001).]