Louise Bogan
 

I was blown away by this poem yesterday. Haven't read much Louise Bogan. Has anyone here? Do you have a favorite Bogan?

Leave-Taking

I do not know where either of us can turn
Just at first, waking from the sleep of each other.
I do not know how we can bear
The river struck by the gold plummet of the moon,
Or many trees shaken together in the darkness.
We shall wish not to be alone
And that love were not dispersed and set free—
Though you defeat me,
And I be heavy upon you.

But like earth heaped over the heart
Is love grown perfect.
Like a shell over the beat of life
Is love perfect to the last.
So let it be the same
Whether we turn to the dark or to the kiss of another;
Let us know this for leavetaking,
That I may not be heavy upon you,
That you may blind me no more.

~ Louise Bogan

Mary,

I remember some time ago her name was mentioned, and, not having heard of her, I looked her up. Thanks for recalling her to my mind! Here is the one poem I saved from that initial investigation. It must have excited me then - and it still does. Chilling couplet - wonderful, as are the tet lines.

A Tale

This youth too long has heard the break
Of waters in a land of change.
He goes to see what suns can make
From soil more indurate and strange.

He cuts what holds his days together
And shuts him in, as lock on lock:
The arrowed vane announcing weather,
The tripping racket of a clock;

Seeking, I think, a light that waits
Still as a lamp upon a shelf, —
A land with hills like rocky gates
Where no sea leaps upon itself.

But he will find that nothing dares
To be enduring, save where, south
Of hidden deserts, torn fire glares
On beauty with a rusted mouth, —

Where something dreadful and another
Look quietly upon each other.

Oh, wow, Cally, "tripping racket of a clock" - the whole thing - thanks!

Two poems now, where she uses "upon" - and it sounds just right - even lovely.

"A Tale" makes me think of Australia for some reason.

I know, Mary!! I love that whole stanza! "torn fire" has stayed with me too. I might have to pinch it one day!

I have a friend who said she took a course from her years ago. At the time she seemed reserved or focused elsewhere -- that term, at least, the passion in the poems did not come out in her teaching. 'Shut with the fire passed and the fire returned,' perhaps. But she left us these poems. Here's one:



Winter Swan

It is a hollow garden, under the cloud;
Beneath the wheel a hollow earth is turned;
Within the mind the live blood shouts aloud;
Under the breast the willing blood is burned,
Shut with the fire passed and the fire returned.
But speak, you proud!
Where lies the leaf-caught world once thought abiding,
Now but a dry disarray and artifice?
Here, to the ripple cut by the cold, drifts this
Bird, the long throat bent back, the eyes in hiding.

xxx- Louise Bogan

Oh my, I have a new poet love in my life. Thanks, Ed!

Season's Greetings, Mary.

This is my favorite Bogan. One can feel how time is suspended after a great emotion.

Medusa

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved--a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air,

This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.

The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.

And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.

(From The Blue Estuaries)

Thanks, Janice. This one reminds me of Charlotte Mew, another poet I love.

I first encountered her work when my daughter asked for help interpreting this poem.

Man Alone

It is yourself you seek
In a long rage,
Scanning through light and darkness
Mirrors, the page,

Where should reflected be
Those eyes and that thick hair,
That passionate look, that laughter.
You should appear

Within the book, or doubled,
Freed, in the silvered glass;
Into all other bodies
Yourself should pass.

The glass does not dissolve;
Like walls the mirrors stand;
The printed page gives back
Words by another hand.

And your infatuate eye
Meets not itself below;
Strangers lie in your arms
As I lie now.


And I've always been fond of this one


Roman Fountain

Up from the bronze, I saw
Water without a flaw
Rush to its rest in air,
Reach to its rest, and fall.

Bronze of the blackest shade,
An element man-made,
Shaping upright the bare
Clear gouts of water in air.

O, as with arm and hammer,
Still it is good to strive
To beat out the image whole,
To echo the shout and stammer
When full-gushed waters, alive,
Strike on the fountain's bowl
After the air of summer.

***

I remember liking the title poem of her collected--Blue Estuaries--quite a bit.

Thanks for mentioning Bogan. It's a reminder to take her off the shelf.

John

Thanks so much for those two, John, both beautiful. Capturing water in words isn't easy, but this poem does it. Every line in these two poems seems perfectly calibrated - weighty and light, solid and airy - and so very serious.