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Stephen
No Coward Soul Is Mine
by Emily Jane Brontė
No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear.
O God within my breast.
Almighty ever-present Deity!
Life , that in me has rest,
As I Undying Life, have power in thee!
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,
To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thy infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.
With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.
Though Earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every Existence would exist in thee.
There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Since thou art Being and Breath,
And what thou art may never be destroyed.
Les
'Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers' is extraordinary - nothing like any of the Emily Dickinson poems I've come across before. I really like it and must find more of her early stuff. The rhythm (except for a missed beat in the first line of the first verse, is the same as John Betjeman uses in Myfanwy:
Kind o'er the kinderbank leans my Myfanwy,
White o'er the playpen the sheen of her dress,
Fresh from the bathroom and soft in the nursery
Soap scented fingers I long to caress.
Were you a prefect and head of your dormit'ry?
Were you a hockey girl, tennis or gym?
Who was your favourite? Who had a crush on you?
Which were the baths where they taught you to swim?
Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,
Home and Colonial, Star, International,
Balancing bicycle leant on the verge.
Trace me your wheel-tracks, you fortunate bicycle,
Out of the shopping and into the dark,
Back down the avenue, back to the pottingshed,
Back to the house on the fringe of the park.
Golden the light on the locks of Myfanwy,
Golden the light on the book on her knee,
Finger marked pages of Rackham's Hans Anderson,
Time for the children to come down to tea.
Oh! Fullers angel-cake, Robertson's marmalade,
Liberty lampshade, come shine on us all,
My! what a spread for the friends of Myfanwy,
Some in the alcove and some in the hall.
Then what sardines in half-lighted passages!
Locking of fingers in long hide-and-seek.
You will protect me, my silken Myfanwy,
Ring leader, tom-boy, and chum to the weak.
In fact, just given the poem and no author, I'd have guessed Betjeman
Marian, you can find Emily's early poems and all other poems here:
[www.csustan.edu] />
Les
Thanks, Les. I'm on my way!
The rhythm ...
Golden the light on the locks of Myfanwy
Golden the light on the book on her knee
I hear this as dactylic tetrameter, feminine odd lines, masculine even, catalectic endings (lacking syllables at the end).
GOLden the LIGHT on the LOCKS of myFANwy
I'm not sure exactly how to label ED's, although I can hear the dactylic pattern you mention:
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers --
Untouched my Morning
And untouched by Noon --
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection --
Rafter of satin,
And Roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze
In her Castle above them --
Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,
Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence --
Ah, what sagacity perished here!
Perhaps that is the problem the editor heard with her 'gait'? Inconsistent, I mean.
To Hang Our Head
---Emily Dickinson
To hang our head - - ostensibly - -
And subsequent, to find
That such was not the posture
Of our immortal mind - -
Affords the sly presumption
That in so dense a fuzz - -
You - - too - - take Cobweb attitudes
Upon a plane of Gauze!
Talk about different, what's the pattern here, Hugh?
Les
Ostensibly an iambic gait, something like ballad meter, something like short meter. Anyway, 3-4 iambic feet per line, mostly feminine endings on the even lines, all masculine on the odd. Perhaps chosen deliberately fuzzy to match the theme?
Could be read thusly, with 7-6-6-7 feet per line, rhyming aabb:
To hang our head - - ostensibly - - and subsequent, to find
That such was not the posture of our immortal mind - -
Affords the sly presumption that in so dense a fuzz - -
You - - too - - take Cobweb attitudes upon a plane of Gauze!
Hugh, I didn't hear the iambic meter in my first reading, perhaps I was paying too much attention to the meaning and lack of perfect rhyme at the end.
Les
Could be read thusly, with 7-6-6-7 feet per line, rhyming aabb:
Yup:
To HANG our HEAD - - osTENsiBLY - - and SUBseQUENT, to FIND
That SUCH was NOT the POSTure of OUR imMORtal MIND - -
AfFORDs the SLY preSUMPtion that IN so DENSE a FUZZ - -
You - - TOO - - take COBweb ATtiTUDES uPON a PLANE of GAUZE!
Post Edited (03-04-05 00:26)
Didn't work, did it? Oh, well. Back to the original format, unless we speculate caesuras in some lines.
I still think the Gilligan's Island theme is up there with her best
need help with analysis of "Because I Could Not Stop For Death"
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