Lesson 33 Readings

	"And Oh--That The Man I Am Might Cease To Be--" by D.H. Lawrence
	No, now I wish the sunshine would stop. and the white shining houses, and the gay¹ red flowers on the balconies and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out	¹ happy, cheerful
(5)	between two valves of darkness; the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with muffled sound obliterating everything.
(10)	I wish that whatever props up the walls of light would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down, and it would be thick black dark for ever. Not sleep, which is grey with dreams, nor death, which quivers with birth, but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.
(15)	What is sleep? It goes over me, like a shadow over a hill, but it does not alter me, nor help me. And death would ache still, I am sure; it would be lambent², uneasy.	² luminous, having a gentle glow
(20)	I wish it would be completely dark everywhere, inside me, and out, heavily dark utterly.

	Easter, 1916 by W.B. Yeats
	I HAVE met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses.
(5)	I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done
(10)	Of a mocking tale or a gibe¹ To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley² is worn:	¹ a teasing joke ² the rainbow-colored clothes of a jester
(15)	All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. That woman's days were spent In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument
(20)	Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful, She rode to harriers³? This man had kept a school	³ Constance Gore-Booth (1868-1927), a member of the uprising. Her death sentence was reduced to imprisonment. She is the only person Yeats mentions who was not executed.
(25)	And rode our winged horse⁴; This other his helper and friend⁵ Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed,	⁴ Padraic Pearse (1879-1916), a poet and headmaster, represented here as a "winged horse," an allusion to Pegasus, the horse of the Greek muses
(30)	So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout⁶. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart,	⁵ Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916), a poet and playwright ⁶ Major John MacBride (1865-1916), Irish revolutionary and the estranged husband of Yeats's love interest
(35)	Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly:
(40)	A terrible beauty is born. Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream.
(45)	The horse that comes from the road. The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream
(50)	Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call;
(55)	Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?
(60)	That is Heaven's part, our part To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild.
(65)	What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said⁷.	⁷ In 1914, the English Parliament had passed home rule for Ireland, but later suspended it because of World War I.
(70)	We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse -
(75)	MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly⁸ and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly	⁸ James Connolly (1870-1916), a union organizer and military commander in the rebellion.
(80)	A terrible beauty is born.

	An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by W.B. Yeats
	I¹ know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love;	¹The unnamed narrator in this poem is Major Robert Gregory, who died in World War I. He was the son of Lady Augusta Gregory, one of Yeats's greatest supporters. She had a tremendous influence on Yeats's life and writings. ²Kiltartan was Gregory's home county in Ireland.
(5)	My country is Kiltartan² Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before.
(10)	Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind,
(15)	The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

To a Poet, who would have me Praise certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine
W.B. Yeats

You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another’s said or sung,
’Twere politic to do the like by these;
But have you known a dog to praise his fleas?

	The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot
	S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero, Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.¹ Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized² upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,	¹These lines were written by the 16th century Italian poet, Dantes Alighieri, in his famous epic The Divine Comedy. In this long poem, Dante describes his journeys through hell (Inferno), purgatory (Purgatorio), and heaven (Paradiso). In his journey through hell, Dante speaks with several of the damned. These particular lines were spoken by an Italian count. The count explains that he is only speaking freely of his sins because he believes Dante will never return to earth and report what he hears. The lines read: "If I thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy." ²under the influence of ether, a tranquilizer
(5)	The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent
(10)	To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo³.	³ a famous painter and sculptor of the Italian Renaissance
(15)	The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
(20)	Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
(25)	Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands
(30)	That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.
(35)	In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair,
(40)	With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-- (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-- (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")	What do these worries reveal about the speaker's personality?
(45)	Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all:
(50)	Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall⁴ Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?	⁴ In Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" a lovesick duke orders a repeat performance of a sad piece of music: "That strain again! It had a dying fall."
(55)	And I have known the eyes already, known them all-- The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin⁵, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin	⁵ Insect collectors pin their specimens into place and study them. The speaker feels as though he is being analyzed in a similar manner.
(60)	To spit out all the butt-ends⁶ of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all-- Arms that are braceleted⁷ and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)	⁶ as in cigarette butts ⁷ an allusion to the John Donne poem "The Relic": "A bracelet of bright hair about the bone."
(65)	Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? * * * *
(70)	Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. * * * *
(75)	And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
(80)	Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter⁸, I am no prophet--and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,	⁸ an allusion to the death of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:3-11, Mark 6:17-29). In a gesture of love to the beauty Salome, King Herod offered her the gift of anything she wanted in his kingdom. She requested the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter. Herod complied.
(85)	And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
(90)	Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead⁹,	⁹ another biblical allusion; Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (Luke 16:19-31).
(95)	Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"-- If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: "That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all." And would it have been worth it, after all,
(100)	Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor-- And this, and so much more?-- It is impossible to say just what I mean!
(105)	But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all,
(110)	That is not what I meant, at all." * * * * No! I am not Prince Hamlet¹⁰, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord¹¹, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,	¹⁰ Shakespeare's most famous hero; Hamlet, like the speaker, is moody and indecisive. The words "nor was meant to be" echo Hamlet's famous line: "To be, or not to be? That is the question." ¹¹ These lines reveal the speaker's inferiority complex. He states he could never be a main character (like Hamlet). Rather, he will always be an "attendant lord" (Polonius), a side character who may move the plot along, but is a fool nevertheless. (Line 120).
(115)	Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-- Almost, at times, the Fool.
(120)	I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind¹²? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.	¹²during the early 20th century, this hairstyle was considered daring and trendy.
(125)	I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
(130)	By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

	A Bird in the House by Elizabeth Jennings
	It was a yellow voice, a high, shrill treble in the nursery White always and high, I remember it so, White cupboard, off-white table, mugs, dolls’ faces And I was four or five. The garden could have been
(5)	Miles away. We were taken down to the green Asparagus beds, the cut lawn, and the smell of it Comes each summer after rain when white returns. Our bird, A canary called Peter, sang behind bars. The black and white cat Curled and snoozed by the fire and danger was far away.
(10)	Far away for us. Safety was life and only now do I know That white walls and lit leaves knocking windows Are a good prison but always you have To escape, fly off from love not felt as love, But our bird died in his yellow feathers. The quick
(15)	Cat caught him, tore him through the bars when we were out And I do not remember tears or sadness, I only Remember the ritual, the warm yellow feathers we put In a cardboard egg. What a sense of fitness. How far, I know now, Ritual goes back, egg to egg, birth to burial and we went
(20)	Down the garden softly, two in a small procession, And the high clouds bent down, the sky pulled aside Its blue curtains. Death was there or else Where the wise cat had hidden. That day we buried our bird With a sense of fitness. Not knowing death would be hard
(25)	Later, dark, without form or purpose. After my first true grief I wept, was sad, was dark, but today, Clear of terror and agony, The yellow bird sings in my mind and I say That the child is callous but wise, knows the purpose of play.
(30)	And the grief of ten years ago rite, A walk down the garden carrying death in an egg And the sky singing, the trees still waving farewell When dying was nothing to know.