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).]

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.

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.

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.

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).]

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.

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).]

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

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

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.

Thank you for sharing this Mary. I hadn't read it before.

I'm going to take a couple of the previous interpretations one step further and speculate that this is not just meant as a longing for death but the actual passing into death. She recalls her previous imaginings of death (with her past fears that the end might be 'unkind' -an angry or judgmental God) but she now see how easy, how smooth, how simple this trip is. It is like skating on a river with a friend. I understand Maryann's thoughts that river skating is inherently more dangerous but I think the poet chooses the river because it goes somewhere. Lakes only go in circles.
I love the doubling up of 'on, on' and 'fast, fast' -one can feel the one-two of each foot shoving off, picking up momentum.
The last line is killer.
Yes, quite Emily-like. Odd and moving.

Please, for the FV crowd, can someone explain the metrics here?
Thanks, Dee

I agree with the "weariness of life" interpretation. I didn't know this poem before, but I always thought that the best thing in the Joni Mitchell songbook was the refrain:

I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

This is sung to a lovely melody that many singers have rendered very beautifully.

In the Joni Mitchell song, it is clearly an act of weariness, regret, and a desire to escape what's bothering her (tritely, "I made my baby cry"). It's maybe the only well-known sad Christmas song, too.

I wonder if Joni knew about the Mew poem?

Here's how I would scan this, Dee. I find the opening line metrically intriguing, because the first two words are heavily stressed an I find myself breaking smile into two syllables, which I fail to do on the second smile in the same line. Here's a simple stressed/unstressed scan in beats:


SMI - le, 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.

......SMI-le, 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 MOORr 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 reMEMmber it AS we GO.

An effective combination of iambic and anapestic lines in a hetmet structure.



[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited December 21, 2007).]

I pick up on this as a metaphor for dying, with a suggestion (probably colored by my knowledge of Mew) of suicide (the face that wasn't always kind / the willingness or eagerness to skate down the river/ smiling as she comes toward Death).

Leaving the moor and the road for a place that's cold and wind-blown, yet beautiful; and in the closing lines to find - above Death's smile (a skull's smile)- the eyes are actually kind, therefor dying's a kindness that offers forgetfulness of life's unkindness.

Interesting play on the River Lethe, where Death is not a ferryman, yet assists the journey - not with a boat - but skates; still, offering the same benefits. No Eleysian Fields, but a frozen river in a lavely setting, and Death becomes a companion.

Not generally a style I prefer, but I find I'm quite taken with this one.

Thanks, Mary, for posting it.



[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited December 21, 2007).]

I think it's a very fine poem. My interpretation is much the same as Tim's.
I'd never heard of her before, but have now ordered her Collected Poems from Amazon and shall make good my deficiency.
Thanks for posting it, Mary.
Best wishes,
David

Tim said it so perfectly there's nothing left for me to say. A wonderful poem. Like David I will find out more about her. Thank you Mary for posting this.
Janet

I met a man named Herve on the banks of the Delaware. He had been a famed drag queen in the Thirties. 98 years old, he took me to his house and showed me his first edition of his favorite poet, Charlotte Mew. He read me a number of poems and we discussed her and Hardy. In its music this poem strikingly reminds me of Hardy's The Voice, which might be archived here from the days when I ran Mastery.

Unlike Jerry, I hear SMILE, DEATH, just as ON, ON and FAST, FAST. I really don't think it can be scanned with our simple system, that in fact you'd have to have recourse to the full range of classical feet. Aaron or Chris could do it. Even so, you'd just do violence to magic. She breaks our rules on stringing together unstressed syllables, which trip along like grace notes, and it is the accents we must pay attention to. It is heterometrical obviously, but mainly it is hypnotic.

Here is my accentual scan:

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.

My attempts at a scan:
:
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.BANNED POST

......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

I could change my mind about the last line — I actually hear it as a flat lost voice that is more or less even.
Janet

Thanks for all these comments! Some disjointed thoughts:

I hesitated to scan Smile, Death, and now I know why - it's beyond my level.

David, when you get the Collected, please let me know if I did the spacing right on these poems?

That Herve story is interesting. I can imagine Herve and Charlotte had much in common. Surrounded by unkind faces, wishing for a smile or kind eyes.

I'd like to know if "come" had the same connotation for Charlotte that it has for us. Somehow I doubt it.

Perhaps the personification of death is like the personification of absence, as in this poem by Mew. I still don't think Smile, Death is a love poem or about weariness. I think her personification of death/absence is a longing for life and understanding.

Absence

Sometimes I know the way
......You walk, up over the bay;
It is a wind from the far sea
That blows the fragrance of your hair to me.

Or in this garden when the breeze
......Touches my trees
To stir their dreaming shadows on the grass
......I see you pass.

In sheltered beds, the heart of every rose
......Serenely sleeps to-night. As shut as those
Your guarded heart; as safe as they from the beat, beat
Of hooves that tread dropped roses in the street.

......Turn never again
......On these eyes blind with a wild rain
Your eyes; they were stars to me.--
......There are things stars may not see.

But call, call, and though Christ stands
......Still with scarred hands
Over my mouth, I must answer. So
I will come--He shall let me go!




[This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited December 22, 2007).]

Another doozy. Look at the back-to-back ionic majors (pyrrhic spondees): on these EYES WILD with a BLIND RAIN. Yeats could get away with that, but few others. And look carefully at the enjambments. Repetitions again: beat, beat and call, call. Full medial stops: your guarded heart; your eyes; will come-- She writes as though the constraints of line are no constraint at all. That said, the dropped roses in the street are completely over the top and rather spoil for this reader what is otherwise perfect. It could be worse--but only if they were dropped poems!

She had very little education, so she's not a Swinburne employing mastery of classical prosody. More like Dickinson, an authentic, autodidactic original. Her entry in The Oxford Companion to 20th C Poetry is worth searching out.

[This message has been edited by Tim Murphy (edited December 23, 2007).]

heya Moise,
re:


My first impression on reading, and before going through any posts, was that it displays acceptance and relief that grow as N draws nearer release, eased by the unexpected bonus of discovering that the eyes are kind.

Just btw -Moise, was there no comma after 'why' (the eyes are kind) in yr copy? If there is, tht's one reading, and if not, it is entirely another level of understanding, as though demanding to know why death's visage should nonethless have kind eyes, despite all N has heard/experienced of death situations.

I'd take 'stream' to be a different status to 'river', Maryann; thus I don't infer the aspect of risk, but rather a loss (her authentic self? her love? acceptance by her immediate/distant environment - ...will not believe in it...)with which N has come to terms (vision behind).

I dont see wearyiness etc; I see it as a poem of almost joy-bringing 'initiation' into the state of liberation.

Yea - I didn't want to try and break this into feet, so I just listed what I heard as the strongest stresses. I agree, it is hypnotic...

Mark

Our scans pretty much agree - I just added some promotions, which I tend to do when there are three 'unstressed' syllables in a row. The one vs. two syllable 'smile' is probably regional. It didn't affect me with 'On' or 'Fast'.

Someone in deep south may say 'fah-yest', though. *grin*

Mine may be an oddball view but I scan this tenuously as dactyllic with a lot of substitutes and "wrapping": stressed end syllables, some of which are simple cretics (DUM-de-DUM) while some are hypercatalexis that make it seem like anapest (DUM-de-de-DUM-de-de-DUM).
While the substitutions may all be "legitimate" there are a few too many of them for this reader's taste.


Season's best,

CW

CW,
That's a legitimate way to read it. I read it as an actor would read it to an audience. I can't imagine a reading as flat as that in a serious gathering. The bones are as you say, I think, but after that the spirit is much more free. I think there is a point where "legitimacy" becomes redundant in poetry. It is no respecter of "Laura Norder". (Australian joke.)
Season's best to you as well.
Janet

In a broader sense, maybe the poem is not only about literal death, but death represents some transition - some decision the narrator has made to leave one thing (or life) behind, in favor of a new one. The new life is one that she looks forward to and embraces, even though it may also mean giving up something. Maybe she was going to come out. I could see this poem also being about someone leaving a marriage.

I do see the poem as being about death itself. The acceptance of death and the overcoming of useless fear and resistance.
Janet

Oddball views are especially welcome on this thread.

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

I especially like this line.

It could be, Annie, in fact, it's very likely, that she was referring, in part, to her own sense of being different and persona non grata. She fell in love with a woman writer, who then mocked her in public.

The last line was interesting:

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

The idea of not believing in life once one has died is unusual. Usually, you expect a religious interpretation to require us to remember what happened in life and be concerned about it. That is not the message here. If you think about it materially, a corpse would not speak of life, nor believe in anything, nor remember anything. So there is a truth expressed here. Without this last line, I would find the overall poem dull.

The earlier descriptions of death being wind-blown are disappointing. Why should death be wind-blown?

I think the reason that the poem is not easy to scan is that the meter, ordered traditionally as something that can be described with terminology like "iambic", is not uniform enough for a scan to be useful. I don't think it would scan well using the terminology of alliterative meter either. There is word repetition, rhyme and alliteration. These patterns are what adds the hypnotic interest. There is no other repetition that would make a traditional or alliterative scan uncover further information to explain the hypnotic or rhythmic affect of the writing.

I did not see anything about lesbianism in the poem, but maybe there are keywords or secret images there that I am not aware of.

Awww Frank, you're so hard on the poor girl! I think you could take all kinds of religious and spiritual meaning from this poem. This could very easily have been written by a converted Christian.

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.

Death as something to fear, maybe even hell...

Smile, death, as you fasten the blades to my feet for me
(Show me your face, why the eyes are kind!)

... becomes something to embrace, a welcome release, like heaven.

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

No regrets, no looking back, because what is ahead is so much better, perhaps.

The wind-blown space could be a clean slate, a starting over, a second chance, total forgiveness- in other words, Grace.

I don't necessarily believe this interpretation is exactly what the author had in mind, just going by her history of suicide. But I think it's one valid interpretation and that this is a beautiful poem. One of the things that makes a poem great, to me, is its ability to speak to every reader, no matter how different they all may be.

annie

Thanks, Frank and Annie.

Sure, there may be no explicit reference to lesbianism in this poem. And that's an important way to read a poem - to take into account only what the words suggest. However, there are other ways to read poems. Poems often inspire me to look beyond the poem itself, into everything surrounding the creation of the poem, including the poet. Once I gather details about all this, I can't then separate the details from my reading. I see no reason to do so. All those details only make the reading a richer experience. I'm sure there must be terminology for what I'm describing - Derrida, deconstruction, New Criticism, blah blah blah. I haven't decided if all those terms are important to learn or just a bunch of jargon. My reading and interpretation of poems seems to be expanding into history, biography, and publication complications.

I'm no great shakes as a critic, but I am a big admirer of Mew, and this poem was new to me, so many thanks for it!

I would love to know if this was by any chance the last poem she wrote. Mew ended her own life, and I would like to think that at the end the "eyes were kind."

The Farmer's Bride

Three Summers since I chose a maid,
Too young maybe - but more's to do
....At harvest-time than bide and woo.
....When us was wed she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter's day.
Her smile went out, and 'twasn't a woman--
....More like a little, frightened fay.
....One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

"Out 'mong the sheep, her be," they said,
'Should properly have been abed;
....But sure enough she wasn't there
....Lying awake with her wide brown stare.
So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down
We chased her, flying like a hare
Before our lanterns. To Church-Town
All in a shiver and a scare
....We caught her, fetched her home at last
....And turned the key upon her, fast.

She does the work about the house
As well as most, but like a mouse:
....Happy enough to chat and play
....With birds and rabbits and such as they,
So long as men-folk stay away.
"Not near, not near!" her eyes beseech
When one of us comes within reach.
The women say that beasts in stall
....Look round like children at her call.
....I've hardly heard her speak at all.

Shy as a leveret, swift as he,
Straight and slight as a young larch tree,
Sweet as the first wild violets, she,
To her wild self. But what to me?

The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,
The blue smoke rises to the low gray sky,
....One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,
....A magpie's spotted feathers lie
On the black earth spread white with rime,
The berries redden up to Christmas-time.
What's Christmas-time without there be
....Some other in the house than we!

She sleeps up in the attic there
Alone, poor maid. 'Tis but a stair
Betwixt us. Oh, my God! - the down,
The soft young down of her; the brown,
The brown of her - her eyes, her hair, her hair!

I'd love to know that too, Gail. If I find out, I'll let you know.

Jerry - thanks for posting this delicious poem - wow, I never read it before, and I love it.

I was amazed to read this line:

One leaf in the still air falls slowly down

It was one leaf I saw falling out my window that inspired me to write the leaf ghazal I had posted here recently, which turned into a poem about Mew.