POETIC DICTION

 

One of the many joys of reading English literature is to revel in “poetic diction”, that high-flown style of writing or speaking, which arrests by its rhythms, its aptness and its imaginative range. In our rich literature, there are many exponents of this style, mainly recognised poets, and I share with you some of my favourites, to supplement those of my readers. My selection is conventional - many are ”golden oldies” which have delighted us for centuries.

1.       Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye,

So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

 

(from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales 1387)

 

Unfamiliar vocabulary, eccentric spelling, obscure meanings were enough to send a schoolboy a-quiver with apprehension, but after some robust teaching, and with access to a glossary, he quickly gave the passage a grin of recognition and set out on the road of moving through middle English to the modern language.

 

2. Thomas Cranmer (1469-1556)

 

We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us

And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

(From The Book of Common Prayer, revised 1662)

Prose, of course, and devotional, but I call it Poetic Prose.

3.    William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

 

From Macbeth

 

Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.

 

From Hamlet

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

 

From The Tempest

 

Poetic Diction in all its glory!

 

 

 

4.      John Donne (1572-1631)

 

If some king of the earth have so large an extent of dominion, in North, and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his dominions, so large an extent East and West, as that he hath day and night together in his dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgment together: He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou hast no Spring? though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now - now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries. All occasions invite his mercies.

 

(From sermon preached at St Paul’s Christmas Day 1624)

 

Donne’s peroration is one of the glories of our language.

5.      Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1771-1834)

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and inchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted Burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

     The shadow of the dome of pleasure
     Floated midway on the waves;
     Where was heard the mingled measure
     From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

(From Kubla Khan 1816)

Coleridge’s visions may have been opiate-assisted – they possess great power nonetheless.

6.      William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

                      And let the young Lambs bound

                      As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

                      Ye that pipe and ye that play,

                      Ye that through your hearts to-day

                      Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

                Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

                      We will grieve not, rather find

                      Strength in what remains behind;

                      In the primal sympathy

                      Which having been must ever be;

                      In the soothing thoughts that spring

                      Out of human suffering;

                      In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

                      Is lovely yet.

 

(From Intimations of Immortality 1807)

 

To my mind, Wordsworth’s Poetic Diction surpasses all others.

 

 

7.      John Keats (1795-1821)

 

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

 

(From On First looking into Chapman’s Homer 1816)

 

Keats’ Odes are unsurpassed but the above is very striking.

 

 

8.      Lord George Byron (1780-1824)

 

THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece
    Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
    Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,
    The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse:
    Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest’.

The mountains look on Marathon—
    And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
    I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

My chosen quote is an 1819 patriotic call for Greek independence and Byron, like me, was brought up in Aberdeen and even went to my same primary school. Some alumnus!

9.      Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, not falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory

 

(From Prometheus Unbound 1820)

 

Shelley was a committed radical and this inspiring passage proclaims his hopes.

 

 

10.  W. B. Yeats (1868-1939)

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

(The Lake Isle of Innisfree 1890)

Yeats survived into my century and his lovely poem is still widely admired. Some of his native Irish disparage it, as hackneyed and over-familiar, but I remain moved by its language and its emotive images.

I hope my selection appeals to my readers. I already hear some critics who may complain it is “male, stale and pale, “but no lady, person of colour or youngster has yet produced diction of comparable quality, although there must be an abundance of talent.

Meanwhile, take immense pride in our profound literary and cultural heritage – as a final bonne bouche I attach a video of “Jerusalem” – a great poem by William Blake and a great 1916 anthem by Sir Hubert Parry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1x8wouy3mE&ab_channel=RoyalChoralSoc

 

SMD

6.6.23

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2023