Two amazing poems by the English Romantic, Algernon Charles Swinburne, both published in the same 1866 collection. The first, "August", I fell in love with over a year ago and made into a song for the forthcoming SLBM album. It's intoxicatingly mysterious. The second, "The Year of Love"—which I stumbled on a couple days ago—provides an illuminating counterpoint.
In "August", the four continuously-referenced apples seem to represent something. In "The Year of Love", it's made explicit—four loves over four seasons. In "August", the wind "blew and breathed and blew/Too weak to alter it's one word", and I always wondered what that one word was. In "The Year of Love"—"eyes made strong and grave with sleep/And yet too weak to weep–"—it's crying (often code for sex in Romantic poetry, no?—but what isn't...). Many other delicious parallels. (Click on poems above to enlarge.)
Gratuitous bizarre detail from the biography in the Swinburne Penguin edition:
1868: Frequented a flagellation brothel...Read a French translation of the Mahabharata, with excessive enthusiasm...
I can't remember if I made this confession to you and Becky yet or not, but oddly (for an English major)I don't care for most poetry. But, once in a while a bit of imagery will really thrill me. Like the lines--
ReplyDeleteOf mosses in the cloven veins
and
Made of the heat of whole great Junes
Burning the Blue Dark Round their Moons
(Each like a mown red marigold)
--lines so rich, I wish I could eat them! :)
yummy!
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