Elegy- Brittany Graul

      On a Dead Child

BY ROBERT BRIDGES

Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,

      With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!

            Though cold and stark and bare,

The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.

Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer

      To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be

            Thy father’s pride;—ah, he

Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.

To me, as I move thee now in the last duty,

      Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond;

            Startling my fancy fond

With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty.

Thy hand clasps, as ’twas wont, my finger, and holds it:

      But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff;

            Yet feels to my hand as if

’Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it.

So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,—

      Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!—

            Propping thy wise, sad head,

Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing.

So quiet! doth the change content thee?—Death, whither hath he taken thee?

      To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this?

            The vision of which I miss,

Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and awaken thee?

Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us

      To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark,

            Unwilling, alone we embark,

And the things we have seen and have known and have heard of, fail us.

Bridges, Robert. "On a Dead Child." Poetry Foundation. Web. < http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175246 >

                         This melancholy piece by Robert Bridges includes the three key elements of an elegy, but only really illustrates the two of the three stages of loss quite clearly, the vast majority of the poem being grief and sorrow for the mournful event. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker laments the child’s death when he opens the poem with the idea that a child had died. He expresses grief over what the child could have been if he had lived but now cannot be and says, “With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!” Then, later the speaker moves on to the second stage where he begins to praise the dead child and discuss how great he was which can be seen when the speaker refers to the child as “thy father’s pride” and “thy mother’s treasure wert thou.” More sorrow and grief is intertwined with these parts as well because after the speaker praises the dead child, they cry out and say “alas! no longer,” basically saying though this child was beloved, they are no more. However, when we get to the third stage, this one is a bit more fleeting and less prevalent in the poem than the others. Later in the poem, the speaker mostly reverts back to discussing the sadness of the child’s death. The speaker also questions “Death, whither hath he taken thee? To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this?” which could be interpreted as some sort of consolation or solace because it seems that the speaker is trying to reconcile the death and hoping that the child was taken to a better place, but it is not as obvious as the other elements.

                     Through the elegy, it seems that the speaker mostly is making a point about the sadness and grief of death, which the majority of the poem is consumed with. At the very end of the poem, when the speaker says “little at best can all our hopes avail us To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark,” the speaker reinforces this idea because he basically says that when a death occurs, there really is nothing that makes our sorrows any better. 

International Poetry-Will Atkins

Post 1-Will Atkins-4th

Dog and Snow
BY PAUL S PIPER
Dog sees white. Arctic
light, the bright buzz in the brain

of pure crystal adrenaline. In a flash
he is out the door and across the street

looking for snowshoe hares, caribou, cats.
His wild ancestry ignited, Dog plunges

his nose into snow up to his eyes. He sees
his dreams. Master yells from the front porch

but Dog can’t hear him. Dog hears nothing
except the roar of the wind across the tundra,the ancient

existential cry of wolves, pure, devastating, hungry.
Time for crunchies. Taking many detours, Dog

returns to the porch. Let master think what he
wants. Freedom comes at a price.

Piper, Paul S. "Dog and Snow." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2014. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/248718>.

As I scrolled through the poems in the, “Browse,” section of poetryfoundation.org I couldn’t read but a few words of the body of the various poems. For the most part all I could read was there title. At first there were a few that caught my eye.  Some of the more vague ones with single word titles made me chuckle as I was not attracted to their sense of unknown. I wish not to read a poem that is simply called, “Pelican.” I simply don’t enjoy the ambiguity of it. But then I scrolled a little more and saw, “Dog and Snow.” So simple yet elegant. And the first line, “Dog sees white.” It was perfect.
Then I actually had to read it. And its simplicity continued until it grew into something much bigger. The dog’s absent-minded nature evolved into this symbol that I wrestled with in my head until it is given to me on a silver platter in the last sentence. Then I experienced the joy of reading the poem again knowing the dog represented freedom. It was similar to watching a crime show episode for the second time and knowing whom the killer was. Suddenly you see the looks in their eyes and you better understand how they end up being the murderer. That’s how it is with the dog. He’s not failing to hear his master’s call. Instead he is exercising his right to trounce about freely in the snow. And that’s why this poem speaks to me.

Genesis-Will Atkins

God had created the Heavens, and he also created Earth. At the beginning, on Earth there was only darkness. So God created light, calling the light, “day,” and the dark, “night.” In the following days he created the sky, the vegetation of the earth, and all of its animals. All but one. Because on the sixth day God created Man. On the seventh, God rested. This would go on to be know as a day of holy rest.  Later on, God would place Man in the garden of Eden with all of the vegetation and all of the animals. He let Man name all of them, but none were suitable companions for him. So in Man’s deep slumber, God pulled a rib out of man and used that to form woman, Man’s supposed partner. They were both naked, yet felt no shame. God went on to say that Man and Woman could eat anything within the garden besides the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Though they were told not to eat from the tree, Woman disobeyed this after a serpent convinced her to try the fruit of the tree. She and Man tried the fruit, and when God found out he punished them both. God sentenced Woman to painful child birth and he sentenced man to working the fields from which he eats.

My origin is not the most compelling of tales. I was born on July 12th, 1996, in Memphis, TN, to a now family of five. However, it was a matter of weeks until my family and I moved to Lexington, KY. Living here 18 years now has sculpted my origin all on its own.

Elegy-Will Atkins

“The Doomed” by Emily Dickinson

The Doomed -- regard the Sunrise
With different Delight --
Because -- when next it burns abroad
They doubt to witness it --

The Man -- to die -- tomorrow --
Harks for the Meadow Bird --
Because its Music stirs the Axe
That clamors for his head --

Joyful -- to whom the Sunrise
Precedes Enamored -- Day --
Joyful -- for whom the Meadow Bird
Has ought but Elegy!

“The Doomed” by Emily Dickinson breaks the three elements of elegy poems into three simple stanzas. The first element of elegy is lamentation, where the author expresses their grief and sorrow. In the poem the demonstration of this comes in the first stanza using strong, sorrowful words like, “Doomed,” and, “doubt.” The second element of elegy, praise and admiration, appears in the second stanza with the use of the phrase, “Harks for the Meadow Bird.” This creates a more positive, admiring tone for the stanza. The final element of elegy is consolation and solace. This can be seen in the last stanza through the repetition of the word, “Joyful,” signifying that the author has come to peace with the idea of death and therefore while not welcomes it, has come to terms with it.

Elegy

The Martyr BY HERMAN MELVILLE Indicative of the passion of the people on the 15th of April, 1865 Good Friday was the day Of the prodigy and crime, When they killed him in his pity, When they killed him in his prime Of clemency and calm— When with yearning he was filled To redeem the evil-willed, And, though conqueror, be kind; But they killed him in his kindness, In their madness and their blindness, And they killed him from behind. There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand: Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand. He lieth in his blood— The father in his face; They have killed him, the Forgiver— The Avenger takes his place, The Avenger wisely stern, Who in righteousness shall do What heavens call him to, And the parricides remand; For they killed him in his kindness, In their madness and their blindness. And his blood is on their hand. There is sobbing of the strong, And a pall upon the land; But the People in their weeping Bare the iron hand: Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand. Barrett, Faith. Words for the Hour. Massachusetts, 2005. Print. Elegies involving someone being killed are usually very emotion filled. In the beginning of this poem he states that they killed him "in his pity" and "in his prime" so there is an obvious tone of grievance which is essential in a elegy. When Herman refers to his loved one as a prodigy and speaks of his kindness, that expresses admiration, which is another necessary characteristic of a elegy. Elegies are usually finished off with consolation, and the most universal way of consolidation of the loss of a loved one is crying. He expresses that there is "sobbing of the strong," which leads to comfort. But since his loved one was killed, he still has a vengeance, hence the iron hand.

Elegy (The Wreck of the Thresher by William Meredith)- Andy Hoyt

The Wreck of the Thresher

BY WILLIAM MEREDITH

(Lost at Sea, April 10, 1963)

I stand on the ledge where rock runs into the river

As the night turns brackish with morning, and mourn the drowned.

Here the sea is diluted with river; I watch it slaver

Like a dog curing of rabies. Its ravening over,

Lickspittle ocean nuzzles the dry ground.

(But the dream that woke me was worse than the sea’s gray

Slip-slap; there are no such sounds by day.)

This crushing of people is something we live with.

Daily, by unaccountable whim

Or caught up in some harebrained scheme of death,

Tangled in cars, dropped from the sky, in flame,

Men and women break the pledge of breath:

And now under water, gone all jetsam and small

In the pressure of oceans collected, a squad of brave men in a hull.

(Why can’t our dreams be content with the terrible facts?

The only animal cursed with responsible sleep,

We trace disaster always to our own acts.

I met a monstrous self trapped in the black deep:

All these years, he smiled, I’ve drilled at sea

For this crush of water. Then he saved only me.)

We invest ships with life. Look at a harbor

At first light: with better grace than men

In their movements the vessels run to their labors

Working the fields that the tide has made green again;

Their beauty is womanly, they are named for ladies and queens,

Although by a wise superstition these are called

After fish, the finned boats, silent and submarine.

The crushing of any ship has always been held

In dread, like a house burned or a great tree felled.

I think of how sailors laugh, as if cold and wet

And dark and lost were their private, funny derision

And I can judge then what dark compression

Astonishes them now, their sunken faces set

Unsmiling, where the currents sluice to and fro

And without humor, somewhere northeast of here and below.

(Sea-brothers, I lower to you the ingenuity of dreams,

Strange lungs and bells to escape in; let me stay aboard last—

We amend our dreams in half-sleep. Then it seems

Easy to talk to the severe dead and explain the past.

Now they are saying, Do not be ashamed to stay alive,

You have dreamt nothing that we do not forgive.

And gentlier, Study something deeper than yourselves,

As, how the heart, when it turns diver, delves and saves.)

Whether we give assent to this or rage

Is a question of temperament and does not matter.

Some will has been done past our understanding,

Past our guilt surely, equal to our fears.

Dullards, we are set again to the cryptic blank page

Where the sea schools us with terrible water.

The noise of a boat breaking up and its men is in our ears.

The bottom here is too far down for our sounding;

The ocean was salt before we crawled to tears.

Analysis

    The Wreck of the Thresher, while fitting the traditional structure of an elegy, is distinct in that it pays homage to an entire group of people and the vessels that they devoted their lives to. Meredith mourns for sailors lost at sea. The first three stanzas encompass the "lament" of the poem. Meredith conveys a sorrowful tone with such phrases as "the dream that woke me was worse than the sea’s gray Slip-slap" and "This crushing of people is something we live with". 

    The fourth stanza begins describing the sailors and, strangely, idealizing the ships they "invest... with life." Meredith describes the vessels as "womanly, they are named for ladies and queens," and states that "The crushing of any ship has always been held In dread, like a house burned or a great tree felled." In fact, the entire middle "praise and admiration" section of the poem seems more focused on the ships than the sailors who tragically perished with them. Meredith understands how integral a part of life a ship is to its sailors, and that they indeed take great pride in their vessels. By idealizing the ships in this poem Meredith does in fact honor the sailors themselves.

    The last two stanzas make up the final "consolation and solace" section of the elegy, but not without a twist. Meredith claims that it is "Easy to talk to the severe dead and explain the past." and that we believe they would say "Do not be ashamed to stay alive... Study something deeper than yourselves." The final stanza has a "life goes on" tone. It begins "Whether we give assent to this or rage Is a question of temperament and does not matter", already saying that despite these tragic we will persist. He states that we are "Dullards... set again to the cryptic blank page" and that we will continue braving the sea and sending sailors to their deaths as long as it is there.

Bibliography

•   Meredith, William. "The Wreck of the Thresher." The Poetry Foundation. 10 Apr. 1963. Web. 24 Sept. 2014. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171861>.

Elegy - Olivia Dixon

Elegy for Philip Sidney

By Baron Brooke Fulke Greville
 

Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage,

Staled are my thoughts, which loved and lost the wonder of our age;

Yet quickened now with fire, though dead with frost ere now,

Enraged I write I know not what; dead, quick, I know not how.

Hard-hearted minds relent and rigor's tears abound,

And envy strangely rues his end, in whom no fault was found.

Knowledge her light hath lost, valor hath slain her knight,

Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the world's delight.

Place, pensive, wails his fall whose presence was her pride;

Time crieth out, My ebb is come; his life was my spring tide.

Fame mourns in that she lost the ground of her reports;

Each living wight laments his lack, and all in sundry sorts.

He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind

A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined;

Declaring in his thoughts, his life, and that he writ,

Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit.

He, only like himself, was second unto none,

Whose death (though life) we rue, and wrong, and all in vain do moan;

Their loss, not him, wail they that fill the world with cries,

Death slew not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.

Now sink of sorrow I who live—the more the wrong!

Who wishing death, whom death denies, whose thread is all too long;

Who tied to wretched life, who looks for no relief,

Must spend my ever dying days in never ending grief.

Farewell to you, my hopes, my wonted waking dreams,

Farewell, sometimes enjoyëd joy, eclipsëd are thy beams.

Farewell, self-pleasing thoughts which quietness brings forth,

And farewell, friendship's sacred league, uniting minds of worth.

And farewell, merry heart, the gift of guiltless minds,

And all sports which for life's restore variety assigns;

Let all that sweet is, void; in me no mirth may dwell:

Philip, the cause of all this woe, my life's content, farewell!

Now rhyme, the son of rage, which art no kin to skill,

And endless grief, which deads my life, yet knows not how to kill,

Go, seek that hapless tomb, which if ye hap to find

Salute the stones that keep the limbs that held so good a mind.

Written about the loss of a dear friend, this piece contains the three elements of an elegy. The author first expresses sorrow in the second stanza by saying, "hard-hearted minds relent and rigor's tears abound." Her admiration for Philip Sidney is evident in the fourth stanza when she reflects on him being "a spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shine." The last element is solace which is found in the line, "death slew not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies." She provides a more optimistic perspective and insists that his death was his release from this world, and invitation into a greater realm.