Chestnuts, Burrs, and Leaves

In honor of the official beginning of summer (though with this heat it has been here for a while now), I want to start off my summer poetry series with two poems about being barefoot. As a child of the South, we rarely ever played outside without being barefoot. Shoes were worn when we were going somewhere or when company was coming. I do remember one time when I truly wished I had not been barefoot. My grandparents had a chestnut tree. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with chestnut trees, but chestnuts grow inside burrs (see the picture on the right), which look like little porcupines. A group of us kids were playing around the chestnut tree, climbing it and fooling around. Stupidly we were barefoot, but being barefoot made climbing a tree easier. When we were down on the ground, I was backing up (I think my sister was threatening me). I stepped on one of these burrs. Hundreds of the little thorns went into the bottom of my foot. It took my grandfather and father all day and much of the night to get most of them out. A few that got really embedded in my foot didn’t come out for months and sometimes even years. It was not one of my finer moments.

Chestnut Tree

So in honor of those barefoot days of summer, here are some poems that I hope you will enjoy.

The Barefoot Boy by John Greenleaf Whittier

Blessings on thee, little man,

Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!

With thy turned-up pantaloons,

And thy merry whistled tunes;

With thy red lip, redder still

Kissed by strawberries on the hill;

With the sunshine on thy face,

Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace;

From my heart I give thee joy,—

I was once a barefoot boy!

Barefoot Days by Rachel Field

In the morning, very early,

That’s the time I love to go

Barefoot where the fern grows curly

And the grass is cool between each toe,

On a summer morning – O!

On a summer morning!

That is when the birds go by

Up the sunny slopes of air,

And each rose has a butterfly

Or a golden bee to wear;

And I am glad in every toe –

Such a summer morning – O!

Such a summer morning!

For more information about the poets who wrote these poems, click “Read More” below.

John Greenleaf Whittier

The first poem “The Barefoot Boy” is by John Greenleaf Whittier (born Dec. 17, 1807, near Haverhill, Mass., U.S. — died Sept. 7, 1892, Hampton Falls, Mass.), a U.S. poet and reformer. A Quaker born on a farm, Whittier had limited education but was early acquainted with poetry. He became involved in journalism and published his first volume of poems in 1831. During 1833 – 42 he embraced the abolitionism of William Lloyd Garrison and became a prominent antislavery crusader. Thereafter he continued to support humanitarian causes while publishing further poetry volumes. After the Civil War he was noted for his vivid portrayals of rural New England life. His best-known poem is the nostalgic pastoral “Snow-Bound” (1866); others include “Maud Muller” (1854) and “Barbara Frietchie” (1863).

The second poem, “Barefoot Days” is by Rachel Lyman Field (September 19, 1894 – March 15, 1942), an American novelist, poet, and author of children’s fiction. She is best known for her Newbery Medal–winning novel for young adults, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, published in 1929. Field was born in New York City, and, as a child, contributed to the St. Nicholas Magazine. She was educated at Radcliffe College. Field was also a successful author of adult fiction, writing the bestsellers Time Out of Mind (1935), All This and Heaven Too (1938), and And Now Tomorrow (1942). She is also famous for her poem-turned-song “Something Told the Wild Geese”. Field also wrote the English lyrics for the version of Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria used in the Disney film Fantasia (film). Field married Arthur S. Pederson in 1935, with whom she collaborated in 1937 on To See Ourselves. She died in Los Angeles, California on March 15, 1942, of pneumonia following an operation.

As I stated to Ace in a comment about last week’s poem, sonnets are my favorite form of poetry.  The rhythm and cadence of a sonnet is pure beauty.  I wanted to share with you today my two favorite sonnets.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)
by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

What is your favorite form of poetry?

What is your favorite poem?  


Sonnets from the Portuguese
Shakespeare's Sonnets
				

TRAVELLING BETWEEN PLACES

Leaving nothing and nothing ahead;
when you stop for the evening
the sky will be in ruins,

when you hear late birds
with tired throats singing
think how good it is that they,

knowing you were coming,
stayed up late to greet you
who travels between places

when the late afternoon
drifts into the woods, when
nothing matters specially.

BRIAN PATTEN

Born near Liverpool’s docks, he attended Sefton Park School in the Smithdown Road area of Liverpool, where he was noted for his essays and greatly encouraged in his work by Harry Sutcliffe his form teacher. He left school at fifteen and began work for The Bootle Times writing a column on popular music. One of his first articles was on Roger McGough and Adrian Henri, two pop-oriented Liverpool Poets who later joined Patten in a best-selling poetry anthology called The Mersey Sound, drawing popular attention to his own contemporary collections Little Johnny’s Confession (1967) and Notes to the Hurrying Man (1969). Patten received early encouragement from Philip Larkin.

Patten’s style is generally lyrical and his subjects are primarily love and relationships. His 1981 collection Love Poems draws together his best work in this area from the previous sixteen years. Tribune has described Patten as “the master poet of his genre, taking on the intricacies of love and beauty with a totally new approach, new for him and for contemporary poetry.” Charles Causley once commented that he “reveals a sensibility profoundly aware of the ever-present possibility of the magical and the miraculous, as well as of the granite-hard realities. These are undiluted poems, beautifully calculated, informed – even in their darkest moments – with courage and hope.”

The poem below appears in The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse (ed. Stephen Coote, pp. 192-93).  “The Cornelian” is about a choirboy, John Edleston (spelled “Eddleston” by Byron), whom Byron met as a student at Cambridge and with whom he was deeply in love (see The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature, ed. Byrne R. S. Fone, p. 219).  Despite Byron’s reputation as a womanizer and a world-class object of heterosexual love, he was, apparently, throughout his life romantically attached to men.  Louis Crompton, in Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in 19th-Century England, has shown that Byron fled England not only because of the scandal over his affair with his half-sister, but also because of the repressive anti-same-sex laws in England, where the penalty for sodomy was death.  Also, Crompton suggests that homosexual desire was one of the reasons he first went to Greece and the anti-same sex sentiment in England may account for the famous Byronic stance of lone defiance.  The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II, says that Byron was “fundamentally homosexual” (p. 285), yet that was not a fact generally taught over thirty years ago, at least not in my experience, and the latest edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature (2006) ignores the fact Byron was “fundamentally homosexual.”

The Cornelian
No specious splendour of this stone
    Endears it to my memory ever;
With lustre only once it shone,

    And blushes modest as the giver.

Some, who can sneer at friendship’s ties,
    Have, for my weakness, oft reprov’d me;
Yet still the simple gift I prize,
    For I am sure, the giver lov’d me.

He offer’d it with downcast look,
    As fearful that I might refuse it;
I told him, when the gift I took,
    My only fear should be, to lose it.

This pledge attentively I view’d,
    And sparkling as I held it near,
Methought one drop the stone bedew’d,
    And, ever since, I’ve lov’d a tear.

Still, to adorn his humble youth,
    Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield;
But he, who seeks the flowers of truth,
    Must quit the garden, for the field.

‘Tis not the plant uprear’d in sloth,
    Which beauty shews, and sheds perfume;
The flowers, which yield the most of both,
    In Nature’s wild luxuriance bloom.

Had Fortune aided Nature’s care,
    For once forgetting to be blind,
His would have been an ample share,
    If well proportioned to his mind.

But had the Goddess clearly seen,
    His form had fix’d her fickle breast;
Her countless hoards would his have been,
    And none remain’d to give the rest.

                                                                          (1807)
 

Note: Byron received the cornelian (also spelled carnelian, “a reddish variety of chalcedony used in jewelry,” Random House Webster’s College Dictionary) from the choirboy, Edlestone.

The photographs are by William von Gloeden, one of my favorite early historical photographers of male nudes.  This post combines two of my favorite things: the poetry of Byron and the photography of von Gloeden.

Some of you may know that May is National Masturbation Month, and I thought I would have a little fun with this post.  In honor of this month our poem today is dedicated to the deed of the month.

It’s always been a fascination
I’ve never lacked for motivation
Always finding the inspiration
A wonderful form of relaxation
Much more fun than meditation
Starting with some stimulation
You get that feeling of elation
As it begins its elongation
Followed by the levitation.
Then waiting in anticipation
Of enjoying that final sensation
As I try to reach my destination
It then all turns to serious frustration
And a decision is taken for termination
As you get that realization
That there will be no ejaculation
And you’re in serious danger of dehydration.

–by Andrew

I hope you all have plenty of solitary fun this month.

By the way, for those of you who love poetry, do any of you guys know of any poems about masturbation.  I know that there are some suggestions that “Birches” by Robert Frost is about masturbation, but I’ve never bought into that way of thought.  Though not poetry, I do remember by English 102 professor (a very sweet former kindergarten teacher) whispering to us in class (in that prim and proper way that older southern women can be) that the university writing center would explain to us that “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” a short story by D. H. Lawrence, is all about masturbation, but she believed that it was about obsession.