[Mike Todd]

This one, by Herrick. (Sorry for the code. I don't know how else to preserve indentation.)

[Tim Murphy]

I don't think I've ever seen a Mastery thread on a set theme that didn't disintegrate as lesser poems were posted. Here, every poem is great, every poem I know and love, and every one is a very good reason why I never have nor shall attempt to write an aubade.

[RCL]

One of my favorites:

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

The Windhover


To Christ our Lord


I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 5
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 10
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

[Clive Watkins]

An aside on Dafydd ap Gwilym...

Last Saturday my wife and I visited the grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym, whose poem Mary quotes above. It lies in the graveyard next to the ruins of Strata Florida Abbey not far from Tregaron in Ceredigion, in central Wales. A large yew tree grows from it. Close up, this tree shows signs of considerable antiquity. Perhaps it is the one celebrated in an elegy for Dafydd ap Gwilym (fl. 1340 - 1370) written by his near contemporary Gruffudd Gryg (fl 1360 - 1400) entitled (in English) "The Yew Tree".

If I knew how to do it, I would post one of the photographs I took of the grave last week.

Photographs of the abbey and information about it can be found here: http://www.castlewales.com/strata.html .

Clive Watkins




[This message has been edited by Clive Watkins (edited June 20, 2008).]

[Tim Murphy]

I couldn't get the Gwilym link to the Po Foundation to work, so Mary sent it to me again. No translator is identified! Unbelievable. Mary (bless her heart) thought it was a contemporary poem. Plus ca change... I do think this is a brilliantly conceived poem in English, just wish I knew who did it. Just before West Chester Aaron was up here, and I read him the very good Dafydd ap Gwilym translations in the Longman Anthology of British Literature. Forever frustrated in love as he is, Aaron has a new favorite poet. I told Mary that if a few skirmishes had gone the other way, we'd be speaking Welsh and asking Geoffrey who?

[This message has been edited by Tim Murphy (edited June 20, 2008).]

[Mike Todd]

I was delighted to discover that a search for Dafydd ap Gwilym yielded a number of pages on Amazon. Most of the titles are fairly expensive, but there are one or two affordable items, notably Dafydd Ap Gwilym: The Poems. However, the one review this book gets indicates issues with the translation. Sigh. I wonder if anyone can recommend the best (or a good) translation. I'm liking what I read here (and Winter, elsewhere) very much.

Edit: Tim, looks like we cross-posted.

[This message has been edited by Mike Todd (edited June 20, 2008).]

[Mary Meriam]

Fie on me for leaving out the last stanza, which I just added above.

What a wonderful story, Clive.

As soon as I get a chance, I'll be writing to the Poetry Foundation to ask who translated this aubade.

As I told Tim, I fell in love with the poem when I read these lines:

The cruellest judge in the costliest court
Could not condemn a night so short.

I also love this -

“Then why do the raucous ravens talk
With such a loud insistent squawk?”

[David Rosenthal]

Timothy Steele's "An Aubade."

David R.

[Janet Kenny]

I learned this one first of all because of Schubert's lovely setting.
From "Cymbeline" by Shakespeare.

Aubade

HARK! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise!
Arise, arise!

[Golias]

No one, so far, has mentioned Preludes II and III, perhaps because the images are rather dreary, but these 91-year-old lines by T. S. Eliot still influence my attempts at aubade writing.

II

The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades
That times resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.


III

You tossed a blanket from the bed
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed's edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

Since retiring from business and from the hateful 6:00 a.m. clock alarm, I find the hour of natural waking to be the best of my day for composing reflective poetry. If the night's sleep has been deep and good then my mind is refreshed and ready to do something. If dreams have come in the night, some can be recaptured and put to work while the memory of them lingers.

Edited in: Janet, doesn't the disagreement in number between subject and verb in "Hark, hark! The lark" bother you? Cloten is an oaf, to be sure, but the song is sung by a eunuch, and they're smart, so the fault must be Shakespeare's, assuming he wrote the play.

G/W

[This message has been edited by Golias (edited June 21, 2008).]