[Tim Murphy]

On Dec 02, 2000 Alan initiated a thread on Robert Francis. Go to page six after punching “show all topics.” Caleb, you participated in the thread extensively, so you cannot plausibly plead ignorance of this majestic poet. Only three, arguably lesser poems appeared, so here are some of my favorites.

Indoor Lady

An indoor lady that I know
Laments the lateness of the spring—
The sun, the birds, the buds so slow,
The superannuated snow,
The wind that is possessed to blow.

Her sadly window-watching eyes,
Her uttered and unuttered sighs,
For such unseasonable skies
Give me to understand that spring
In other years was otherwise.


The Mouse Whose Name Is Time

The mouse whose name is Time
Is out of sound and sight.
He nibbles at the day
And nibbles at the night.

He nibbles at the summer
Till all of it is gone.
He nibbles at the seashore,
He nibbles at the moon.

Yet no man not a seer,
No woman not a sibyl
Can ever ever hear
Or see him nibble, nibble.

And whence or how he comes
And how or where he goes
Nobody now remembers,
Nobody living knows.


Farm Boy After Summer

A seated statue of himself he seems.
A bronze slowness becomes him. Patently
The page he contemplates he doesn’t see.

The lesson, the long lesson, has been summer.
His mind holds summer as his skin holds sun.
For once the homework, all of it, was done.

What were the crops, where were the fiery fields
Where for so many days so many hours
The sun assaulted him with glittering showers?

Expect a certain absence in his presence.
Expect all winter long a summer scholar,
For scarcely all its snows can cool that color.


And here's the unutterably compassionate Francis poem from the Edward Thomas thread that prompted me to begin this one.


Good Night Near Christmas

And now good night. Good night to this old house
Whose breathing fires are banked for their night's rest.
Good night to lighted windows in the west.
Good night to neighbors and to neighbor's cows

Whose morning milk will be beside my door.
Good night to one star shining in. Good night
To earth, poor earth with its uncertain light,
Our little wandering planet still at war.

Good night to one unstarved and gnawing mouse
Between the inner and the outer wall.
He has a paper nest in which to crawl.
Good night to men who have no bed, no house.

[Caleb Murdock]

Yes, I remember that thread. I had just forgotten what the poet's name was. This time around I am going to get his poems on my site, if I can get them without paying fees. Incidentally, I still prefer my version of the poem about the cows.

All these poems you posted are just gorgeous. I'll be ordering his book very soon. The Collected Poems you recommend is the 1985 edition, right?

------------------
Caleb
www.poemtree.com

[A. E. Stallings]

Thanks for the redux thread. It is probably time.

I need to get the Collected too. I only know a handful of Francis poems, but they all seem perfect in their modest way.

This is a favorite:

Sheep

From where I stand the sheep stand still
As stones against the stony hill.

The stones are gray
And so are they.

And both are weatherworn and round,
Leading the eye back to the ground.

Two mingled flocks--
The sheep, the rocks.

And still no sheep stirs from its place
Or lifts its Babylonian face.


There is a nifty essay by Richard Wilbur on this poem which greatly added to my appreciation of it in <u>The Catbird's Song</u>. Actually, it is probably short enough to quote in full.

[Caleb Murdock]

I can imagine it would be a lot of typing for you to quote an essay in full. Is it available on the net anywhere?

[A. E. Stallings]

Sorry--the essay got caught up/lost in the move to the new server. Will come back in a bit and quote a paragraph, anyway.

[Roger Slater]

As the baseball season gets underway, this personal-favorite Francis poem readily comes to mind:

The Pitcher


His art is eccentricity, his aim
How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,

His passion how to avoid the obvious,
His technique how to vary the avoidance.

The others throw to be comprehended. He
Throws to be a moment misunderstood.

Yet not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild,
But every seeming aberration willed.

Not to, yet still, still to communicate
Making the batter understand too late.

[Tim Murphy]

Yes, Roger, The Pitcher is a classic.

Now That Your Shoulders Reach My Shoulders

My shoulders once were yours for riding.
My feet were yours for walking, wading.
My morning once was yours for taking.

Still I can almost feel the pressure
Of your warm hands clasping my forehead
While my hands clasped your willing ankles.

Now that your shoulders reach my shoulders
What is there left for me to give you?
Where is a weight to lift as welcome?

Young Farmer

Once glance at him and you can tell
His fruit is clean, his corn is tall.
His sheep and cattle pastured well,
His buildings trim: house, barn, and wall.

You know the seed he sows is sound
As seed his forefathers have sown.
And when he plows and plants the ground
The crop must grow as he has grown.

While I slept

While I slept, while I slept and the night grew colder
She would come to my room, stepping softly
And draw a blanket about my shoulder
While I slept.

While I slept, while I slept in the dark, still heat
She would come to my bed, stepping cooly
And smooth the twisted, troubled sheet
While I slept.

Now she sleeps, sleeps under quiet rain
While nights grow warm or nights grow colder,
And I wake, and sleep, and wake again
While she sleeps.

[Caleb Murdock]

Wow. This is one poet who mustn't be lost to the trash bin of history.

[Tim Murphy]

It is the pity of the Western World that Alicia's conscientious typing of Wilbur's essay on Francis disappeared into the blueness during the Eratosphere switcheroo. Wilbur also wrote a little preface to Francis' final chapbook, "Butter Hill," published in 1983. "A New England poet with Japanese virtues," Wilbur said. "What I mean by Japanese is this: in reading Francis, we seldom have a sense that some garrulous 'I' is standing between us and selected phenomena, telling us how he feels about them and what they signify. Francis is enough 'out there' to know that a nuthatch sees him as upside-down."

[Clive Watkins]

The first poems by Robert Francis I encountered were read as part of a book review on BBC radio in, I think, 1966. The volume was Come Out Into the Sun: Poems New and Selected, handsomely printed by the University of Massachusetts Press. I acquired my copy in January, 1967. From that broadcast, I remember in particular the following poem, "Eagle Plain". It is one of several poems over the years in which the eagle figures symbolically. If the impression has grown up that Francis is a rural formalist, this poem perhaps hints at a wider range of concerns, both thematic and artistic.


The American eagle is not aware he is
the American eagle. He is never tempted
to look modest.

When orators advertise the American eagle's
virtues, the American eagle is not listening.
This is his virtue.

He is somewhere else, he is mountains away
but even if he were near he would never
make an audience.

The American eagle never says he will serve
if drafted, will dutifully serve etc. He is
not at our service.

If we have honored him we have honored one
who unequivocally honors himself by
overlooking us.

He does not know the meaning of magnificent.
Perhaps we do not altogether either
who cannot touch him.


Clive Watkins