REELY'S POETRY BLOG

Sarah Helen Whitman, as you may know, was engaged to marry Edgar Allan Poe in the year before he died. I’m not going to go into her biographical information. You can find that out readily enough on Wikipedia, and there is also a link on our poem page, The Portrait, to a more in-depth account of the courtship, engagement and break-up of the unreliable Mr. Poe and the ether-sniffing Mrs. Whitman. It was a very short-lived engagement and in the following year — the year he died — Poe was even romancing another woman.

Sarah Helen Whitman wrote The Portrait to Edgar Allen Poe many years after his death. During those years, she often defended him against criticism and slander.

Wouldn’t it be all so romantic and tidy to say that after his death, Mrs. Whitman deeply regretted not marrying him? Maybe, but I get the feeling she simply felt he deserved better posthumous treatment than he was getting. Whether you like the poem or not, I hope you agree that her last stanza proved prophetic indeed:
Read the rest of this entry »

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

So we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart still be as loving,
And the moon still be as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul outwears the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

~ George Gordon, Lord Byron

Seems at least one woman came close to losing her marbles because Lord Byron didn’t want to go a-roving with her anymore.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know
Lady Caroline’s description of Lord Byron has often been turned upon her. Learn more about her life and career as a writer here.

More Links: Kris Delmhorst on YouTube

A Hungarian poet who is very famous in Hungary, Sándor Petõfi was born in 1823 and no one really knows when he died. He disappeared in 1849 at the age of 26. In the preceding years, however, he published 10 volumes of poems.

I found a very sweet poem, which I hope you enjoy, on Réka’s Hungarian Page

I’LL BE A TREE

I’ll be a tree, if you are its flower,
Or a flower, if you are the dew –
I’ll be the dew, if you are the sunbeam,
Only to be united with you.

My lovely girl, if you are the Heaven,
I shall be a star above on high;
My darling, if you are hell-fire,
To unite us, damned I shall die.

Tr: Egon F. Kunz

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE
Reely

Boum
Charles Trenet

… boum!
Quand notre coeur fait boum
Tout avec lui dit boum
Et c’est l’amour qui s’éveille

Boum!
Il chante «Love in Bloom»
Au rythme de ce boum
Qui redit boum à l’oreille

Tout a changé depuis hier et la rue
A des yeux qui regardent aux fenêtres
Y’a du lilas et y’a des mains tendues
Sur la mer le soleil va paraître

Boum!
L’astre du jour fait boum
Tout avec lui dit boum
Quand notre coeur fait boum-boum

Car mon amour est plus vif que l’éclair
Plus léger qu’un oiseau, qu’une abeille
Et s’il fait boum, s’il se met en colère
Il entraîne avec lui des merveilles

Boum!
Le monde entier fait boum
Tout avec lui dit boum
Quand notre coeur fait boum-boum