I agree that ‘Selfsame Song’, by T. Hardy, begins in delight, although its ending is verging on despair, rather than wisdom. Hardy opens this poem with his memories of a bird singing the ‘Selfsame Song’ with ‘never a fault in its flow’. I get the impression he really loves the bird’s ‘selfsame song’ and truly deems it flawless. By ending the first stanza with ‘long years ago’ indicates that those lovely times have been, but now are gone.
In the second stanza by including delight vocabulary, such as ‘A pleasing marvel’ and ‘unchanged in a note’, he shows how amazed and pleased he is to be hearing the song again.
He draws the poem to a close with reality hitting him and despair showing through. He realises that the original bird ‘perished to dust’, along with ‘those who heard that song with me’. As his memories are of so long ago, the bird and the person(s) with him are now deceased, and he is the only one left alive.
‘Dust of Snow’ is a one sentence, eight-lined poem, again by Frost. To be able to understand this poem, you have to be able to identify with Frost’s beliefs regarding nature. He believes that when humans come in to contact with animals it is of automatic benefit for the humans concerned. He speaks of ‘a crow’, which is a bird of death shaking ‘the dust of snow from a hemlock tree’ on him. Hemlock trees are most commonly thought of as poisonous plants, this also indicates misery. In his second stanza, the snow that the crow shook upon him gives his heart ‘a change of mood and saved some part of a day I had rued’. Somehow having snow shaken on him by a bird of death has saved some part of a day he regretted. I feel that the wisdom in this poem is to do with opportunities, and the fact that something so small, even annoying, could be turned around in to something else; which is what Frost has shrewdly done with this I think.
‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ (Frost) most certainly begins in delight and ends in wisdom. Frost uses the iambic metre throughout the poem, and he sticks to the rhyming scheme at of ending each line, ‘gold’ and ‘hold’, ‘flower’, and ‘hour’. The metaphoric title in itself states nothing good can stay. Frost uses a metaphor to begin the poem, ‘Nature’s first green is gold’. I think by this he is conveying just how precious nature is; in the same way gold is precious and that, us as humans should realise it. He continues with a line of alliteration, adding rhythm and an air or breathlessness. His first use of delight vocabulary comes when he uses another metaphor to describe ‘her first leaf’ as a ‘flower’.
The first three lines boast happiness and delight; he then changes the theme, moving on to wisdom. He speaks of leaves ‘subsiding’, thus portraying negativity; he continues the negative vibe, with ‘Eden sank to grief’. Eden was a beautiful garden, given to Adam and Eve by God. I believe Frost mentions the Garden of Eden here because, he believes that when they ate the dreaded apple, that garden too ‘sank to grief’, and this is what is happening in nature and life in general. “Dawn goes down today” again gives a negative feel; it links back to “when Eden ‘sank’ to grief” and “leaf ‘subsides’ to leaf”, all are creating a sense of going down and negativity.
He draws the poem to a close with the title, ‘nothing gold can stay’. His philosophy being, that all good things come to an end, which is not necessarily true in some people’s eyes, but it is in mine.
‘Unharvested’ is a slightly longer poem of Frost’s, agreeing with his statement in the title, comprising three stanzas, all of different lengths also, I think, using the iambic metre. It consists of ample delight vocabulary and an important message. Frost is writing about a walk perhaps, he goes on, and smells ‘a scent of ripeness from over a wall’. He left ‘the routine road’, the path, presumably, he normally takes and went to look for what had made him ‘stall’, - hang around. earlier. ‘There sure enough was an apple tree, that had eased itself of its summer load’, he sees an apple tree that has lost all its apples, making it a free flowing tree and now ‘breathed as light as a lady’s fan’.
He goes on to talk about an apple fall ‘as complete as the apple has given man’. As in “Nothing gold can stay”, he refers to The Garden of Eden; he must take great delight in it to be comparing the apples to the apples in Eden.
Moving on to the philosophy, he states ‘May something go always unharvested!’. By that, is he saying that he always wants something to be left off, or forgotten? ‘May much stay out of our stated plan, apples or something forgotten and left’, so the answer to my question is yes, he does want something to be ‘forgotten’. I find this to be the philosophy of the poem, do not plan too far ahead, or with too much detail, let chance and fun have a chance and don’t forget that you can go off schedule sometimes. I think this is a motivating idea and ideally, ought to be carried throughout life with us.
‘Blackberry Picking’ (S. Heaney) is similar to ‘Nothing gold can stay’ in that it too agrees with the ‘beginning in delight and ending in wisdom’ rule, but the metre I believe is more anapaestic, that iambic. After reading this poem, I found the story of Heaney’s childhood, the times when he used to go blackberry picking and how each year he knew that the berries would not last but checked just encase.
I could tell that Heaney finds a great deal of delight in blackberry picking and the blackberries themselves because of all the delight vocabulary used in his first stanza. ‘At first just one glossy purple clot’ suggests that he loves them so much, he even knows all the first signs and that the day is coming closer when ‘You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet’. He then uses a simile ‘like thickened wine summer’s blood was in it’ to show his love for the berries. He tells us about his ‘lust for picking’, this gives me the impression that instead of craving perhaps chocolate, as possibly other boys did, he found the blackberries second to none! He goes on to mention the ‘briars that scratched and wet grass that bleached our boots’ I think that by this, he is informing anyone that hasn’t been blackberry picking of its down side! Heaney enjoys it so much that he does not care about his hands being ‘peppered with thorn pricks’ and ‘palms sticky and Bluebeard’s’; to him it’s all worth it.
When Heaney hoards the ‘fresh berries’ he doesn’t put them in any old container, he calls it a ‘cache, which is used for treasure, making it quite obvious that he regards the berries as ‘treasure’. The wisdom begins to emerge in the last 3 lines, when he shares his feelings about the fruit fermenting, how he ‘always felt like crying’ and how he didn’t think it was fair’. There are many things in life that we do not want to face or allow to happen, and are not fair. Each year he ‘hoped they’d keep, but knew they would not’. Heaney should really have learnt from his mistakes, but in life don’t we need some hope to live off, or is that the folly of the poem? As in ‘Nothing gold can stay’, the same motto is veiled in his words, however much we want things to say, they never do, and life is not fair.
‘A living’ (T. Hardy) again using the iambic metre, has a somewhat different tone, compared with the rest of the poems. He opens with a shocking statement, ‘A man should not earn his living’, by using it, he grabs the reader’s interest with open arms. He carries on to justify what he stated ‘ if he earns his life he’ll be lovely’, which, not being quite as shocking makes the reader think. After reading that, my thoughts were that he was talking about the material side of life, again comparing animals to humans.
In the second stanza he talk about the way birds don’t compete, just get on with life, in ‘heedlessness’. In his concluding verse, he uses plenty of delight vocabulary, to describe the ‘plucky little sport’ with it ‘giving life to song and chirruping gay feathers, fluff-shadowed warmth and all the unspeakable charms of birds’. I believe he is portraying the fact that the bird gives all this back to the earth and this is his way of earning ‘his living’, subsequently the bird must be ‘lovely’. I agree that there is wisdom in this poem, in fact that it surrounds the poem, with the delight vocabulary in amongst it. I consider the wisdom of this poem to be that we should all earn our life. Frost has demonstrated how the bird earns his, but it has raised the question what do we do to earn ours. This is an interesting angle to look at life from and must not be over looked; we should all give something back to the Earth, and earn our living space.
After studying all these poems, I am now far more aware of plenty of points of view, thoughts and feelings. Each poem showed a different aspect on life, even though the message in some was similar. In conclusion, I deem the poets I have come across, highly calculated, intelligent individuals, wishing to share their ideas on the world with others. Their use of poetry as their line of communication to express themselves, is incredibly good!