[robert mezey]

It's always interesting to see poems from far
off the beaten track, especially those by a poet
as good as Charlotte Mew. Now here's one of the
real masters, now forgotten, almost never found
in anthologies, not even those devoted to American
poetry. Trumbull Stickney, dead at 30 of a brain
tumor, never had the chance to develop. He was at
Harvard while Robinson was there, and he was the
only poet of their generation who might have rivalled
Robinson, had he lived. Here are two of his great
things.

MT. LYKAION

Alone on Lykaion since man hath been
Stand on the height two columns, where at rest
Two eagles hewn of gold sit looking East
Forever; and the sun goes down between.
Far down among the mountain's oval green
An order keeps the falling stones abreast.
Below within the chaos last and least
A river like a curl of light is seen.
Beyond the river lies the even sea,
Beyond the sea another ghost of sky,--
O God, support the sickness of my eye
Lest the far space and long antiquity
Suck out my heart, and on this awful ground
The great wind kill my little shell with sound.


IN AMPEZZO

Only once more and not again--the larches
Shake to the wind their echo, "Not again,"--
We see, below the sky that over-arches
Heavy and blue, the plain

Between Tofana lying and Cristallo
In meadowy earths above the ringing stream:
Whence interchangeably desire may follow,
Hesitant as in dream,

At sunset, south, by lilac promontories
Under green skies to Italy, or forth
By calms of morning beyond Lavinores
Tyrolward and to north:

As now, this last of latter days, when over
The brownish fields by peasants are undone
Some widths of grass, some plots of mountain clover
Under the autumn sun,

With honey-warm perfume that risen lingers
In mazes of low heat, or takes the air,
Passing delicious as a woman's fingers
Passing amid the hair;

When scythes are swishing and the mower's muscle
Spans a repeated crescent to and fro,
Or in dry stalks of corn the sickles rustle,
Tangle, detach and go,

Far thro' the wide blue day and greening meadow
Whose blots of amber beaded are with sheaves,
Whereover pallidly a cloud-shadow
Deadens the earth and leaves:

Whilst high around and near, their heads of iron
Sunken in sky whose azure overlights
Ravine and edges, stand the grey and maron
Desolate Dolomites,--

And older than decay from the small summit
Unfolds a stream of pebbly wreckage down
Under the suns of midday, like some comet
Struck into gravel stone.

Faintly across this gold and amethystine
September, images of summer fade;
And gentle dreams now freshen on the pristine
Viols, awhile unplayed,

Of many a place where lovingly we wander,
More dearly held that quickly we forsake,--
A pine by sullen coasts, an oleander
Reddening on the lake.

And there, each year with more familiar motion,
From many a bird and windy forestries,
Or along shaking fringes of the ocean
Vapours of music rise.

From many easts the morning gives her splendour;
The shadows fill with colours we forget;
Remembered tints at evening grow tender,
Tarnished with violet.

Let us away! soon sheets of winter metal
On this discoloured mountain-land will close,
While elsewhere Spring-time weaves a crimson petal,
Builds and perfumes a rose.

Away! for here the mountain sinks in gravel.
Let us forget the unhappy site with change,
And go, if only happiness be travel
After the new and strange:--

Unless 't were better to be very single,
To follow some diviner monotone.
And in all beauties, where ourselves commingle,
Love but a love, but one,

Across this shadowy minute of our living,
What time our hearts so magically sing,
To meditate our fever, simply giving
All in a little thing?

Just as here, past yon dumb and melancholy
Sameness of ruin, while the mountains ail,
Summer and sunset-coloured autumn slowly
Dissipate down the vale;

And all these lines along the sky that measure,
Sorapis and the rocks of Mezzodi
Crumble by foamy miles into the azure
Mediterranean sea:

Whereas to-day at sunrise, under brambles,
A league above the moss and dying pines
I picked this little--in my hand that trembles--
Parcel of columbines.

* * *
The man could play, no?

[Tim Murphy]

These are gorgeous, as is everything I ever read by Stickney, whose early death was the worst loss American Poetry ever suffered. I think one of the highest and best uses of this board is calling attention to unjustly neglected mastery, and I'm particularly gratified to see these postings of Mew and Stickney.

[Nigel Holt]

Lovely - I hadn't seen these before. This one I found recently - beautiful too:

<u>The Melancholy Year</u>

The melancholy year is dead with rain
Drop on drop on every branch pursues.
From far away beyond the drizzled flues
A twilight saddens on the window pane.
And dimly thro'the chambers of the brain.
From place to place and gently touching, moves
My one and irrecoverable love's
Dear and lost shape one other time again.
So in the last of autumn for a day
Summer or summer's memory returns.
So in a mountain's desolation burns
Some rich belated flower, and with the gray
Sick weather, in the world of rotting ferns
From out the dreadful stones it dies away.

[This message has been edited by Nigel Holt (edited June 23, 2001).]

[graywyvern]

lovely

[Alan Sullivan]

"The Melancholy Year" has both clarity and pith. A very fine poem indeed. "In Ampezzo," though very well crafted, is a bit precious for my taste. Such overly-luscious words as "amythestine" are like flypaper for some buzzing beginners. I'm not referring to Stickney, of course, but to novice versifiers on this site.

Thanks to Robert and to Nigel for posting these.

A.S.

[Howard]

Here's the link to a small collection of Stickney's I added to the "Poets' Corner" archive a while back.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...tickn01.html#1


Howard

[robert mezey]

Alan, I can see why "In Ampezzo" might reasonably
strike one as somewhat precious, but for me its
virtues are such as to excuse almost anything. It
doesn't have a great deal to say, considering its
length, but it says it with surpassing verbal music,
what Pound called, if memory serves cantabile,
saying that it was one of the rarest and highest
qualities in verse (& then quoting a ravishing example).
This poem is full of marvelous inventions, such
as the sequence of verbs in "the sickles rustle, /
Tangle, detach and go" or the stunning interruption
of the syntax in the last two lines (there's a name
for that figure, which I forget). And. And.

[Alan Sullivan]

I concede all those virtues. The poem has wonderful turns of phrase, and it chimes like a fine bell. Perhaps the whole carillon is too much to ask.

A.S.