I have a couple of poems today from Hayden Carruth. Today is his 87th birthday (Happy Birthday!).

I was reading his poem, Prepare, which he wrote for his wife:

“Why don’t you write me a poem that will prepare me for your
death?” you said.
It was a rare day here in our climate, bright and sunny. I didn’t feel like
dying that day.
I didn’t even want to think about it — my lovely knees and bold
shoulders broken open, …
read the entire poem on his website

The poem doesn’t mention the afterlife per se. Still, I think about it when I read mostly anything about dying, and often I have wondered why so many religions teach that there is an afterlife, but yet when someone dies, no one seems to believe it. Perhaps it is the shock of permanent physical separation. You can think you’re prepared for it, but you never really are.
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Tags: birthday, death

We’ve got an audio of Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman , although our version is a little different than you will find on most sites. We got it out of a book from 1912.

Honestly, I am not really looking for these little differences, it’s more like they jump out at me when I’m reading a poem. Some poems I know or recall in a different way in the first place. Some just don’t make sense to me so I investigate further to see if I’m right. Such was the case with The Highwayman.

Reading it on Wikipedia, I get to the part where Bess, the landlord’s daughter, the landlord’s black-eyed, red-lipped daughter (some online versions leave out her red lips), gets her finger on the musket’s trigger. After the struggle she went through to get hold of the musket’s trigger, it just didn’t make sense for the line to say “… The trigger at least was hers.” I thought it should be “at last.”

‘At least’ conveys something entirely different - a sense of resignation - when the next part makes it clear that just getting hold of the trigger was in fact Bess’s intention. If the red-coats heard Bess, she must’ve strongly doubted they’d shoot her. She surely knew they fully meant for her to watch them kill her lover. No, they would not be the ones to fire a shot and only a shot would warn the highwayman away.

The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;

Off I went to investigate and I found it in a digitized book, The Home Book of Verse, American and English (1580-1912).

I’d like to say “I was right, I was right,” but who knows, maybe it’s in another book the other way. So allow us to present to you the version of The Highwayman from The Home Book of Verse:

http://www.reelyredd.com/english-0308thehighwayman.htm

We are of course very interested to know whether “least” or “last” makes more sense to you and why.

Reely

Tags: death, love

Today is the birthday of British pacifist, feminist, poet, and novelist. Vera Brittain. She is best known for her largely autobiographical work, TESTAMENT OF YOUTH (1933), a story of ‘the lost generation’ and the irrevocable changes in her life caused by World War I. This is a poem she wrote in memory of her fiance, Roland, who lost his life in the first World War, and took her heart with him.

PERHAPS

Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
And I shall see that still the skies are blue,
And feel once more I do not live in vain,
Although bereft of You.

Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet
Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,
And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,
Though You have passed away.

Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
And crimson roses once again be fair,
And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
Although You are not there.

Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain
To see the passing of the dying year,
And listen to Christmas songs again,
Although You cannot hear.’

But though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.

Tags: birthday, death, vera brittain