[Peter Coghill]

Ragged Island

There, there where those black spruces crowd
To the edge of the precipitous cliff,
Above your boat, under the eastern wall of the island;
And no wave breaks; as if
All had been done, and long ago, that needed
Doing; and the cold tide, unimpeded
By shoal or shelving ledge, moves up and down,
Instead of in and out;
And there is no driftwood there, because there is no beach;
Clean cliff going down as deep as clear water can reach;

No driftwood, such as abounds on the roaring shingle,
To be hefted home, for fires in the kitchen stove;
Barrels, banged ashore about the boiling outer harbour;
Lobster-buoys, on the eel-grass of the sheltered cove:

There, thought unbraids itself, and the mind becomes single.
There you row with tranquil oars, and the ocean
Shows no scar from the cutting of your placid keel;
Care becomes senseless there; pride and promotion
Remote; you only look; you scarcely feel.

Even adventure, with its vital uses,
Is aimless ardour now; and thrift is waste.

Oh, to be there, under the silent spruces,
Where the wide quiet evening darkens without haste
Over a sea with death acquainted, yet forever chaste.

Well I think its great anyway. I dont know if it is a controversial choice for Mastery. Partly end rhymned, not quite metrical the quietening effect of the reflection is reflected in the smoothing out of both of these aspects in the last 5 or 6 lines, leaving a feeling of peace. The address to you sucks in the reader, the repition of there with hypnotic effect, the close observation and commitment to a loved place all work, but mostly I love the way it sounds.

What I think is most interesting technically is that it starts less iambic and works toward more metrical for a calming effect. I don't know why a poem needs to be metrical or not (I occasionally try to vary more or less metrical for effect).

[Chris Childers]

Thanks for this Peter, it's beautiful. I love the rocking tidal movement of the sentences through the lines, and the looser rhythms of that first stanza. Do you think that the syntax and metrics there are actually in conflict with the idea, that all is calm and pure "there," and as such suggestive of the speaker's rather more disordered state, wishing for a purity or innocence that's forever out of reach? Do I just have a dirty mind, to hear echoes perhaps of the speaker's obsession in phrases like "in and out," "going down deep," and maybe even the barrels "banged ashore," though that last may be a stretch? Works for me, and I love it.

Funny, this may be one of the first ESVM poems I've cared much for; she oftens smells a little musty to me.

Chris

[Janet Kenny]

Peter,
I am sure she must have been influenced by Baudelaire's L'invitation au voyage.

L'invitation au voyage


Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D'aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l'ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l'âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l'humeur est vagabonde;
C'est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu'ils viennent du bout du monde.
— Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D'hyacinthe et d'or;
Le monde s'endort
Dans une chaude lumière.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

— Charles Baudelaire


Her repeated "There" echoes Baudelaire's "La". They are different in mood.

The two poems share an intense desire for escape. Her last three lines are stunning.

I agree with you about the infinite relationship between meter and a looser flow of words. I think the reason that we all cling so fearfully to meter here is because it is so despised elsewhere and it seems like a precious thing that might be lost in the stampede. I have wanted to free up my own writing but I admit to wondering who would understand or care about what it is I'm trying to do?

I like Millay's sonnets as well. She wrote with defiance and a great feeling for sound.
Thanks for posting this poem.
Janet


WOW! On the SAME SITE where I found the French poem there is a translation of it by Millay!!!

Invitation to the Voyage

Think, would it not be
Sweet to live with me
All alone, my child, my love? —
Sleep together, share
All things, in that fair
Country you remind me of?
Charming in the dawn
There, the half-withdrawn
Drenched, mysterious sun appears
In the curdled skies,
Treacherous as your eyes
Shining from behind their tears.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

We should have a room
Never out of bloom:
Tables polished by the palm
Of the vanished hours
Should reflect rare flowers
In that amber-scented calm;
Ceilings richly wrought,
Mirrors deep as thought,
Walls with eastern splendor hung,
All should speak apart
To the homesick heart
In its own dear native tongue.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

See, their voyage past,
To their moorings fast,
On the still canals asleep,
These big ships; to bring
You some trifling thing
They have braved the furious deep.
— Now the sun goes down,
Tinting dyke and town,
Field, canal, all things in sight,
Hyacinth and gold;
All that we behold
Slumbers in its ruddy light.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)




[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 25, 2007).]

[Anne Bryant-Hamon]

Originally posted by Chris Childers:
Thanks for this Peter, it's beautiful. I love the rocking tidal movement of the sentences through the lines, and the looser rhythms of that first stanza. Do you think that the syntax and metrics there are actually in conflict with the idea, that all is calm and pure "there," and as such suggestive of the speaker's rather more disordered state, wishing for a purity or innocence that's forever out of reach? Do I just have a dirty mind, to hear echoes perhaps of the speaker's obsession in phrases like "in and out," "going down deep," and maybe even the barrels "banged ashore," though that last may be a stretch? Works for me, and I love it.

Funny, this may be one of the first ESVM poems I've cared much for; she oftens smells a little musty to me.

Chris

Chris -

How daring of you to openly confess that you find Edna's poetry a bit musty. She is usually revered unquestionably on serious poetry discussion boards.

I also noted a bit of erotica in the piece as well. I guess I have a dirty mind too. I think it is pretty easy for the ocean to be erotic though with all that undulating and rocking to and fro.

Anne



[This message has been edited by Anne Bryant-Hamon (edited August 26, 2007).]

[Anne Bryant-Hamon]

Originally posted by Janet Kenny:
Peter,
I am sure she must have been influenced by Baudelaire's L'invitation au voyage.

L'invitation au voyage


Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D'aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l'ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l'âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l'humeur est vagabonde;
C'est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu'ils viennent du bout du monde.
— Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D'hyacinthe et d'or;
Le monde s'endort
Dans une chaude lumière.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

— Charles Baudelaire


Her repeated "There" echoes Baudelaire's "La". They are different in mood.

The two poems share an intense desire for escape. Her last three lines are stunning.

I agree with you about the infinite relationship between meter and a looser flow of words. I think the reason that we all cling so fearfully to meter here is because it is so despised elsewhere and it seems like a precious thing that might be lost in the stampede. I have wanted to free up my own writing but I admit to wondering who would understand or care about what it is I'm trying to do?

I like Millay's sonnets as well. She wrote with defiance and a great feeling for sound.
Thanks for posting this poem.
Janet


WOW! On the SAME SITE where I found the French poem there is a translation of it by Millay!!!

Invitation to the Voyage

Think, would it not be
Sweet to live with me
All alone, my child, my love? —
Sleep together, share
All things, in that fair
Country you remind me of?
Charming in the dawn
There, the half-withdrawn
Drenched, mysterious sun appears
In the curdled skies,
Treacherous as your eyes
Shining from behind their tears.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

We should have a room
Never out of bloom:
Tables polished by the palm
Of the vanished hours
Should reflect rare flowers
In that amber-scented calm;
Ceilings richly wrought,
Mirrors deep as thought,
Walls with eastern splendor hung,
All should speak apart
To the homesick heart
In its own dear native tongue.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

See, their voyage past,
To their moorings fast,
On the still canals asleep,
These big ships; to bring
You some trifling thing
They have braved the furious deep.
— Now the sun goes down,
Tinting dyke and town,
Field, canal, all things in sight,
Hyacinth and gold;
All that we behold
Slumbers in its ruddy light.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

Janet -

Wow is right. And a beautiful translation it is. I'm glad you found it and posted it. I like this much more than most of Baudelaire that I've read.

Thanks for sharing it -
Anne

[Peter Coghill]

Thanks for the replies.

Chris I thought that the opening unevenness reflected the disorder of the mind yearning for the peace of the place. Though somewhere there is an added profundity to the statement (I guess that's where the poetry comes in)

I never thought of the sexy angle, though I you'd think with ESVM it can't be far away.

Thanks for posting the poem and translation Janet. Its a hell of poem.

Despite what defects people find of redundancy and over the top diction in her poems I find (specially in her later poems)such authority.

[Janet Kenny]

Peter,
Try to hear the setting of "L'invitation au voyage" by Henri Duparc.

I am amazed that anyone could fail to admire Millay.
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 28, 2007).]

[Catherine Chandler]

Peter,

I know many of her sonnets by heart, and my admiration for "Vincent" goes back a long way.

Catherine

[Janet Kenny]

Catherine,
You will have noticed that in her translation of Baudelaire, Millay leaves out the crucial "calme". She seems to have done so for metrical and rhyming reasons but it is a serious loss of meaning. Interesting that such an honest woman made such a dishonest choice.
Best,
Janet

[Peter Chipman]

I'm not sure I agree, Janet.

I think she's doing something very different (and more daring) in those refrain lines. Where Baudelaire presents five abstractions in parallel without distinction, Millay sets two of them in relation to the other two. "Restraint and order," in her version, are not merely two in a list of five qualities, but the two that redeem the otherwise purely earthly "luxury and voluptuousness." With those four in relation to each other, I don't think "calme" needs to be specifically mentioned. It's implicit.

You can certainly feel righteous indignation on B's behalf for M's hijacking of his poem, but I feel certain that whatever else is going on in Millay's translation of the refrain lines, it isn't simply an omission dictated by formal constraints.

-Peter