[Michael Juster]

I'm with Paul. The first time I read Larkin's "Aubade" it just blew me away.

[David Rosenthal]

Originally posted by Michael Juster:
I'm with Paul. The first time I read Larkin's "Aubade" it just blew me away.

Oh man, I forgot about that one, and I must have missed Paul's post. That is a great one.

David R.

[This message has been edited by David Rosenthal (edited June 22, 2008).]

[David Anthony]

Originally posted by 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?

--I don't think that's strictly true about the skirmishes, Tim. Like the Yankees in the Civil War they just kept coming in ever-greater numbers, though it did take 1,000 years. King Arthur did a good job, and later on Owain Gwynedd and Lywelyn the Great, but by Dafydd's time there was just one more rising to come (Glyndwr's) then it was over.

I looked up Mary's Dafydd poem in my Welsh Classics translation by Rachel Bromwich, which is probably the one to buy for anybody seriously interested in his work:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poems-Dafydd-Gwilym-Welsh-Cla ssics/dp/0850888158/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214138991&sr=1-3

The poem would be better described as 'after Dafydd ap Gwilym': it's not an accurate translation and doesn't (couldn't) follow the original form, but it is true to the spirit. In the original, 'heaven's candle' is a reference to the male member. It's cheeky, of course, to have the poet quoting his own language ('Dos y Ddw') and the Spanish is not in the original. I'd love to know who wrote it.

Welsh poetry forms are highly complex, accented and alliterative. Coincidentally, Hopkins, quoted by Ralph above, made a study of the Welsh forms, and 'The Windhover' is a good example of their influence on him.

Best regards,

David



[This message has been edited by David Anthony (edited June 22, 2008).]

[Gail White]

Here is Ezra Pound's translation of one of the original medieval aubades:

ALBA INNOMINATA
(French title: "En un vergier sotz folha d'albespi")

In a garden where the whitethorn spreads her leaves
My lady hath her love lain close beside her,
Till the warder cries the dawn -Ah dawn that grieves!
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

"Please God that night, dear night should never cease,
Nor that my love should parted be from me,
Nor cry 'Dawn' - Ah dawn that slayeth peace!
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

"Fair friend and sweet, thy lips! Our lips again!
Lo, in the meafor there the birds give son.
Ours be the love and Jealousy's the pain!
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

"Sweet friend and fair, take we our joy again
Doen in the garden, where the birds are loud,
Till the warder's reed astrain
Cry God, ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

"Of that sweet wind that comes from Far-Away
Have I drunk deep of my beloved's breath,
Yea, of my love's that is so dear and gay.
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!"

Fair is this damsel and right courteous,
And many watch her beauty's gracious way.
Her heart toward love is no wise traitorous.
Ah God, Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

[Mary Meriam]

Well, I wrote to the Poetry Foundation over a week ago, and still haven't heard. Maybe you'd have more luck (clout) than me, Tim. Or I'll try them again on Monday, maybe.

I love that one, Gail! Thanks for all of these posts. I'd be interested in reading aubades by Spherians, too.

[Golias]

Well, come to think of it, Preludes I and II are not really my favorite aubades, only the most influential. I like Auden's better, and Windhover better still, yet none so well as my own. Is not your own, if you've written one, your favorite? Don't you read it more often and think it best? For you, at least? Or am I the only egoist in the house?

G/W

[This message has been edited by Golias (edited July 02, 2008).]

[Mark Allinson]

Is not your own, if you've written one, your favorite? Don't you read it more often and think it best? For you, at least? Or am I the only egoist in the house?

Ha!

Wiley, I think you are almost certainly not alone.

Yes, we all tend to pefer the aroma of our own armpits to stink of others'.

But then again, I must admit to strong doubts that I could EVER write an aubade to eclipse Donne's, or indeed any of the other great examples of the genre we see here.

I think we all often write things which we invest with such undercurrents of our own private emotion that they seem to glow as brightly as truly great poems.

But the trick is to write one which pushes every reader's buttons in the same way as it pushes our own.

Still working on that one.

[Golias]

Agreed, Mark. But while false Modesty may say, "'Tis a poor thing, but mine own," Truth to Self says "this that I have done I must think best, else it were not done."

As you have seen elsewhere:

Aubade

Coming to consciousness
long before dawning
listen to tinnitus,
singing cicadas.

Contented to cancel
the dolor of dreaming
and grateful to showers
that patter the shingles,

O would that we never
awoke to anxiety,
rain and cicadas
sufficient society.

G/W

[Mark Allinson]

Wiley, yes, I do recall this one - it's lovely.

And I think it certainly deserves to be read in the company of those above.

An excellent poem.

[Golias]

Gracias, Mark. That's two (2) buttons already. What I call popularity.

I showed you mine, now show us your own aubades, everybody.

G/W