[Joseph Bottum]

Here's another from Thomas Campion. really beautiful and often performed as a lute song.

Thomas Campion

A Booke of Ayres, Number XXI.

Come, let us sound with melody, the praises
Of the kings king, th’ omnipotent creator,
Author of number, that hath all the world in
Harmonie framed.

Heav’n is His throne perpetually shining,
His devine power and glorie, thence he thunders,
One in all, and all still in one abiding,
Both Father and Sonne.

O sacred sprite, invisible, eternall
Ev’ry where, yet unlimited, that all things
Canst in one moment penetrate, revive me,
O holy Spirit.

Rescue, O rescue me from earthly darknes,
Banish hence all these elementall obiects,
guide my soule that thirsts to the lively Fountaine
Of thy devinenes.

Cleanse my soule, O God, thy bespotted Image,
Altered with sinne so that heav’nly purenes
Cannot acknowledge me, but in thy mercies,
O Father of grace.

But when once thy beames do remove my darknes,
O then I’le shine forth as an Angell of light,
And record, with more than an earthly voice, thy
Infinite honours.

[Joseph Bottum]

And here's Hardy:

Thomas Hardy, "The Temporary The All (Sapphics)"

Change and chancefullness in my flowering youthtime,
Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen;
Wrought us fellowlike, and despite divergence,
Fused us in friendship.
"Cherish him can I while the true one forthcome--
Come the rich fulfiller of my prevision;
Life is roomy yet, and the odds unbounded."
So self-communed I.
'Thwart my wistful way did a damsel saunter,
Fair, albeit unformed to be all-eclipsing;
"Maiden meet," held I, "till arise my forefelt
Wonder of women."
Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring,
Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in:
"Let such lodging be for a breath-while," thought I,
"Soon a more seemly.
"Then high handiwork will I make my life-deed,
Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending,
Intermissive aim at the thing sufficeth."
Thus I. . . . But lo, me!
Mistress, friend, place, aims to be bettered straightway,
Bettered not has Fate or my hand's achievement;
Sole the showance those of my onward earth-track--
Never transcended!

[Joseph Bottum]

Here are sapphics from Franklin P. Adams, reproducing Horace’s meter in translating Horace’s Ode 1.22. Adams has always been a minor favorite of mine, a much under-appreciated American figure.

Franklin P. Adams’s "The Clear Conscience"

He who is upright in his way of living,
Stainless of guilt, needs never the protection
Darts of Morocco, or bows or poisoned arrows,
Fuscus, can give him;

Whether his path be though the sultry Syrtes,
Or through the sunless Caucasus he travel,
Or through the countries watered by the famous
River Hydaspes.

Once in the Sabine Woods when I was strolling
Far past my farm, unarmed and free of worry,
Singing of Lalage, the wolf that heard me
Came up; and left me.

Place me on the sun-divested prairie
Where not a tree lives in the breath of summer;
Or there is nothing ever but the forecast:
Cloudy with showers.

Yes, you may place me on the old Equator
Where it is far too hot for habitation,
Yet I will love my Lalage forever,
Smiling so sweetly.

[Janet Kenny]

Joseph
Indeed they are lovely. They are only remotely connected to the Greek form. They are in English.

I do believe that there are undiscovered forms to grow from English itself. I wish we did more of that.
Janet


Peter
Janet, you mean when you write a sonnet you don’t write with the iambic pentameter template in mind, or "in ear" but rather let the words fall as they may and then decide on the form afterwards?

I have it in my heart. I may check up later but I don't believe a good poem is from a template. It's like deciding to perform a certain dance which one has by heart. I am comfortable with Italian and find the stresses of the Italian form (though not the syntax) accommodate the English form with wonderful ease. Perhaps because of the Latin contribution to our language. Greek is lovely but so different. Its angularities don't coincide nor its stresses.
(I've been called to see a rainbow. We are in a drought. Can it be about to break?)
Janet

[Joseph Bottum]

Originally posted by Janet Kenny:
Indeed they are lovely. They are only remotely connected to the Greek form. They are in English.

Janet--I think sapphics are generally a failure in English, though I'm not sure exactly why. And, I must say, I always like your posts on these forums: thoughtful but kind. This post, however, strikes me as a mistake. Try it with any sonnet you like substituted for Campion's sapphics: "They are only remotely connected to the Romance form. They are in English." Were I to say that, you would quite rightly object that success at a sonnet *makes* the sonnet an English form.

Jody

[Janet Kenny]

Jody
I have a book of lute songs with 22 Thomas Campian songs. Is that the same chap? 1567-1620. Must be? Perhaps another. I used to sing (alas not with a lute) quite a few of them. Lovely indeed.
I have found this URL. He is the same.
http://www.bcpl.net/~cbladey/guy/htm...About%20Thomas

I meant that English is comfortable in the sonnet form and in that sense it is English when it is written in English. Fewer Sapphic poems than sonnets have that ease or are as easy for an English poet to relax into. I suppose they lack that natural grace. That quality itself can lend a gravity and grandeur and I'm not saying that there are no great poems in the form.

I think I'm saying we should develop our own forms. I feel that there are more possibilities than a choice between free verse and traditional classical forms.

We should be like painters and look for some forms of our own that can be expressive, graceful, grand--whatever. Just as dancing grows from the natural inclinations of the human body so does poetry grow from the natural modulations of our own language. Advocates of free verse claim to be doing that. I deny it because I feel that rhythm is fundamental to everything since we function by breathing, heart beats, walking etc. Denying rhythm seems barbaric to me.

Nowadays when orchestral composers write something they call a symphony it rarely reproduces the form used by Haydn. I feel we lack courage. But I can't stop writing sonnets and will always visit traditional forms for refreshment. Do I sound confused? Good
Janet.


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 08, 2004).]

[Golias]

As for setting out to write poems in sapphics, or in any other form, while I don't know how others may fare, for me the following maxims apply:

Start with form; end with form: no poem.

Start with poem; end with poem: no form.

Start with poem; help the poem find form: poem in form.

G/W

[Janet Kenny]

Wiley
That about sums it up. Thank you.


I would like to say to Jody that I do understand the desire to keep the torch from the past alight.
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 08, 2004).]

[Paul Lake]

Here's a fragment by Sappho translated by Jim Powell.


Like the gods. . .
Sappho
Translated by Jim Powell


------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my eyes he matches the gods, that man who
sits there facing you--any man whatever--
listening from closeby to the sweetness of your
voice as you talk, the

sweetness of your laughter: yes, that--I swear it--
sets the heart to shaking inside my breast, since
once I look at you for a moment, I can't
speak any longer,

but my tongue breaks down, and then all at once a
subtle fire races inside my skin, my
eyes can't see a thing and a whirring whistle
thrums at my hearing,

cold sweat covers me and a trembling takes
ahold of me all over: I'm greener than the
grass is and appear to myself to be little
short of dying.

But all must be endured, since even a poor [

[Paul Lake]

I've never tried to write a legitimate Sapphic stanza but parasitically used it as the basis of the stanza in the following poem, which has a sort of Greek feel. From *Walking Backward*:

EPITAPH FOR A DRAFT DODGER


Faced with a call to arms, he scorned those lies
That others packed like socks into their duffle,
Knowing that, winged by shot, no soul would rise
Out of the scuffle,

That virtue was no shield with ghostly glamour
To blind an enemy or block a shell
And cased in ego’s large Vulcanic armor
God-like Achilles fell.

Better, he thought, to slave, a hired man
For some dirt farmer, gnawing on wooden bread,
Than rule, a decorated veteran,
Over the wasted dead.

Thus citing precedents, he made his choice,
Never to march in ranks, now forward, backward,
Except to shout with others NO MORE TROYS,
Waving a placard.

Let others die. He traced memorials
Which like long roll calls named those gone to glory,
Then in prestigious periodicals
Published their story.