Christina Rossetti. Thomas Hardy. We are asked to look at them as narrative poems and to study the following Aspects of Narrative:

Transcription

1 For A level, we have to study two poets chosen from an Anthology that is sent to us. We have chosen Christina Rossetti and Thomas Hardy. I ve included a few for the Book Group discussion. Some others that I didn t include here are: Christina Rossetti 1. Goblin Market (this is very long but is very enjoyable so do look it up on the web and we can discuss it if you wish) 2. The Convent Threshold 3. A Royal Princess 1. At An Inn 2. At Castle Boterel 3. The Going 4. The Haunter 5. Your Last Drive Thomas Hardy We are asked to look at them as narrative poems and to study the following Aspects of Narrative: 1. Scene and Place 2. Time and Sequence 3. Character 4. Voice 5. Points of View 6. Destination You may like to consider these after you ve read each poem. Alternatively, just read and enjoy them! Ros Thomas Hardy Under the Waterfall 'WHENEVER I plunge my arm, like this, In a basin of water, I never miss The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray. Hence the only prime And real love-rhyme That I know by heart, And that leaves no smart, Is the purl of a little valley fall About three spans wide and two spans tall Over a table of solid rock,

2 And into a scoop of the self-same block; The purl of a runlet that never ceases In stir of kingdoms, in wars, in peaces; With a hollow boiling voice it speaks And has spoken since hills were turfless peaks.' 'And why gives this the only prime Idea to you of a real love-rhyme? And why does plunging your arm in a bowl Full of spring water, bring throbs to your soul?' 'Well, under the fall, in a crease of the stone, Though precisely where none ever has known, Jammed darkly, nothing to show how prized, And by now with its smoothness opalized, Is a grinking glass: For, down that pass My lover and I Walked under a sky Of blue with a leaf-wove awning of green, In the burn of August, to paint the scene, And we placed our basket of fruit and wine By the runlet's rim, where we sat to dine; And when we had drunk from the glass together, Arched by the oak-copse from the weather, I held the vessel to rinse in the fall, Where it slipped, and it sank, and was past recall, Though we stooped and plumbed the little abyss With long bared arms. There the glass still is. And, as said, if I thrust my arm below Cold water in a basin or bowl, a throe From the past awakens a sense of that time, And the glass we used, and the cascade's rhyme. The basin seems the pool, and its edge The hard smooth face of the brook-side ledge, And the leafy pattern of china-ware The hanging plants that were bathing there. 'By night, by day, when it shines or lours, There lies intact that chalice of ours, And its presence adds to the rhyme of love Persistently sung by the fall above. No lip has touched it since his and mine In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine.' Thomas Hardy Neutral Tones We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; --They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

3 Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles of years ago; And some words played between us to and fro On which lost the more by our love. The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing Alive enough to have strength to die; And a grin of bitterness swept thereby Like an ominous bird a-wing.... Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree, And a pond edged with grayish leaves. Thomas Hardy Afterwards When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say, "He was a man who used to notice such things"?

4 If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think, "To him this must have been a familiar sight." If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, But he could do little for them; and now he is gone." If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees, Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, "He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"? And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom, "He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"? The Darkling Thrush I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant,

5 His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I. At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware. The Convergence Of The Twain by Thomas Hardy (Lines on the loss of the "Titanic") I In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. II Steel chambers, late the pyres Of her salamandrine fires, Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres. III Over the mirrors meant To glass the opulent The sea-worm crawls--grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent. IV Jewels in joy designed To ravish the sensuous mind

6 Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind. V Dim moon-eyed fishes near Gaze at the gilded gear And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?"... VI Well: while was fashioning This creature of cleaving wing, The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything VII Prepared a sinister mate For her--so gaily great-- A Shape of Ice, for the time fat and dissociate. VIII And as the smart ship grew In stature, grace, and hue In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too. IX Alien they seemed to be: No mortal eye could see The intimate welding of their later history. X Or sign that they were bent By paths coincident On being anon twin halves of one August event, XI Till the Spinner of the Years Said "Now!" And each one hears, And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI Maude Clare by Christina Rossetti Out of the church she followed them With a lofty step and mien: His bride was like a village maid, Maude Clare was like a queen. "Son Thomas," his lady mother said, With smiles, almost with tears: "May Nell and you but live as true As we have done for years;

7 "Your father thirty years ago Had just your tale to tell; But he was not so pale as you, Nor I so pale as Nell." My lord was pale with inward strife, And Nell was pale with pride; My lord gazed long on pale Maude Clare Or ever he kissed the bride. "Lo, I have brought my gift, my lord, Have brought my gift," she said: "To bless the hearth, to bless the board, To bless the marriage-bed. "Here's my half of the golden chain You wore about your neck, That day we waded ankle-deep For lilies in the beck: "Here's my half of the faded leaves We plucked from budding bough, With feet amongst the lily leaves, The lilies are budding now." He strove to match her scorn with scorn, He faltered in his place: "Lady," he said, "Maude Clare," he said, "Maude Clare:" and hid his face. She turn'd to Nell: "My Lady Nell, I have a gift for you; Though, were it fruit, the bloom were gone, Or, were it flowers, the dew. "Take my share of a fickle heart, Mine of a paltry love: Take it or leave it as you will, I wash my hands thereof." "And what you leave," said Nell, "I'll take,

8 And what you spurn, I'll wear; For he's my lord for better and worse, And him I love, Maude Clare. "Yea, though you're taller by the head, More wise and much more fair; I'll love him till he loves me best, Me best of all, Maude Clare." JESSIE CAMERON. Jessie, Jessie Cameron, Hear me but this once, quoth he. Good luck go with you, neighbor s son, But I m no mate for you, quoth she. Day was verging toward the night There beside the moaning sea, Dimness overtook the light There where the breakers be. O Jessie, Jessie Cameron, I have loved you long and true. Good luck go with you, neighbor s son, But I m no mate for you. She was a careless, fearless girl, And made her answer plain; Outspoken she to earl or churl, Kind-hearted in the main, But somewhat heedless with her tongue, And apt at causing pain; A mirthful maiden she and young, Most fair for bliss or bane. O, long ago I told you so, I tell you so to-day: Go you your way, and let me go Just my own free way. The sea swept in with moan and foam Quickening the stretch of sand; They stood almost in sight of home; He strove to take her hand. O, can t you take your answer then, And won t you understand? For me you re not the man of men, I ve other plans are planned.

9 You re good for Madge, or good for Cis, Or good for Kate, may be: But what s to me the good of this While you re not good for me? They stood together on the beach, They two alone, And louder waxed his urgent speech, His patience almost gone: O, say but one kind word to me, Jessie, Jessie Cameron. I d be too proud to beg, quoth she, And pride was in her tone. And pride was in her lifted head, And in her angry eye, And in her foot, which might have fled, But would not fly. Some say that he had gypsy blood, That in his heart was guile: Yet he had gone through fire and flood Only to win her smile. Some say his grandam was a witch, A black witch from beyond the Nile, Who kept an image in a niche And talked with it the while. And by her hut far down the lane Some say they would not pass at night, Lest they should hear an unked strain Or see an unked sight. Alas, for Jessie Cameron! The sea crept moaning, moaning nigher: She should have hastened to be gone, The sea swept higher, breaking by her: She should have hastened to her home While yet the west was flushed with fire, But now her feet are in the foam, The sea-foam, sweeping higher. O mother, linger at your door, And light your lamp to make it plain; But Jessie she comes home no more, No more again. They stood together on the strand, They only, each by each; Home, her home, was close at hand, Utterly out of reach. Her mother in the chimney nook Heard a startled sea-gull screech,

10 But never turned her head to look Towards the darkening beach: Neighbors here and neighbors there Heard one scream, as if a bird Shrilly screaming cleft the air: That was all they heard. Jessie she comes home no more, Comes home never; Her lover s step sounds at his door No more forever. And boats may search upon the sea And search along the river, But none know where the bodies be: Sea-winds that shiver, Sea-birds that breast the blast, Sea-waves swelling, Keep the secret first and last Of their dwelling. Whether the tide so hemmed them round With its pitiless flow, That when they would have gone they found No way to go; Whether she scorned him to the last With words flung to and fro, Or clung to him when hope was past, None will ever know: Whether he helped or hindered her, Threw up his life or lost it well, The troubled sea, for all its stir, Finds no voice to tell. Only watchers by the dying Have thought they heard one pray, Wordless, urgent; and replying, One seem to say him nay: And watchers by the dead have heard A windy swell from miles away, With sobs and screams, but not a word Distinct for them to say: And watchers out at sea have caught Glimpse of a pale gleam here or there, Come and gone as quick as thought, Which might be hand or hair.

11 Cousin Kate I WAS a cottage maiden Hardened by sun and air Contented with my cottage mates, Not mindful I was fair. Why did a great lord find me out, And praise my flaxen hair? Why did a great lord find me out, To fill my heart with care? He lured me to his palace home - Woe's me for joy thereof- To lead a shameless shameful life, His plaything and his love. He wore me like a silken knot, He changed me like a glove; So now I moan, an unclean thing, Who might have been a dove. O Lady kate, my cousin Kate, You grew more fair than I: He saw you at your father's gate, Chose you, and cast me by. He watched your steps along the lane, Your work among the rye; He lifted you from mean estate To sit with him on high. Because you were so good and pure He bound you with his ring: The neighbors call you good and pure, Call me an outcast thing. Even so I sit and howl in dust, You sit in gold and sing: Now which of us has tenderer heart? You had the stronger wing. O cousin Kate, my love was true, Your love was writ in sand: If he had fooled not me but you, If you stood where I stand, He'd not have won me with his love Nor bought me with his land; I would have spit into his face And not have taken his hand. Yet I've a gift you have not got, And seem not like to get: For all your clothes and wedding-ring I've little doubt you fret. My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride, Cling closer, closer yet: Your father would give his lands for one To wear his coronet.

12 Christina Rossetti Winter: My Secret by Christina Georgina Rossetti ( ) Perhaps some day, who knows? But not today; it froze, and blows and snows, And you're too curious: fie! You want to hear it? well: Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell. Or, after all, perhaps there's none: Suppose there is no secret after all, But only just my fun. Today's a nipping day, a biting day; In which one wants a shawl, A veil, a cloak, and other wraps: I cannot ope to everyone who taps, And let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall; Come bounding and surrounding me, Come buffeting, astounding me, Nipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all. I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows His nose to Russian snows To be pecked at by every wind that blows? You would not peck? I thank you for good will, Believe, but leave the truth untested still. Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust March with its peck of dust, Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers, Nor even May, whose flowers One frost may wither thro' the sunless hours. Perhaps some languid summer day, WHen drowsy birds sing less and less, And golden fruit is ripening to excess, If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud, And the warm wind is neither still nor loud, Perhaps my secret I may say, Or you may guess.