Lost Love -Robert Graves
His eyes are quickened so with grief,
He can watch a grass or leaf
Every instant grow; he can
Clearly through a flint wall see,
Or watch the startled spirit flee
From the throat of a dead man.
Across two counties he can hear
And catch your words before you speak.
The woodlouse or the maggot’s weak
Clamour rings in his sad ear,
And noise so slight it would surpass
Credence–drinking sound of grass,
Worm talk, clashing jaws of moth
Chumbling holes in cloth;
The groan of ants who undertake
Gigantic loads for honour’s sake
(Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin);
Whir of spiders when they spin,
And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs
Of idle grubs and flies.
This man is quickened so with grief,
He wanders god-like or like thief
Inside and out, below, above,
Without relief seeking lost love.
I know a wall of text is not everyone’s thing but this entire poem is just an imagery building upon itself and after reading it the sensory experience just leaves my senses buzzing like it is as hyper-sensitive as the speaker’s. The whole point is, this acid trip of sights and sounds hurts more than it is wonder-inducing because this hypersensitivity is a product of grief. I feel the speaker, man.
The nature of the images used is interesting because they belong to nature (life-giving) but the creatures and creepy crawlies are often associated with decay/death/decomposition. Juxtaposition. Opposites. Torn apart. It’s so awe inspiring but it hurts.
Leaving the Rest Unsaid -Robert Graves
Finis, apparent on an earlier page,
With fallen obelisk for colophon,
Must this be here repeated?
Death has been ruefully announced
And to die once is death enough,
Be sure, for any life-time.
Finis: the end, conclusion
Obelisk: a tapering stone pillar
Colophon: a statement at the end about the publication information of a book
Irony in starting the poem with a word meaning “the end”.
Must the book end, as you would end it,
With testamentary appendices
And graveyard indices?
But no, I will not lay me down
To let your tearful music mar
The decent mystery of my progress.
Who is the “you” and “I”? Could it be the reader or the poet himself? Who says reading poetry is about finding answer to the poem right? Also appendices and indices belong to books of more academic nature so there’s the strange contradiction with the nature of the narrative.
The third stanza is posed as a question, and it seems that preference and availability of choice can be involved (“I will not lay me down” as if you had a choice after you died). One option is what “you” would do while the other is what “I” choose. Interesting word choice “but”, since the fourth stanza could be a reply to the above question, it implies a pivot before the proper answer is “no”. Does it mean that the answer that is unsaid was: yes it must end the way “you” would end it, and hence there was a need to rebut it at the start of fourth stanza? Do I suck at explaining my point? But of course!
So now, my solemn ones, leaving the rest unsaid,
Rising in air as on a gander’s wing
At a careless comma,
The choice of animal is a “gander” (a male goose) but it also is a slang word for foolish man (haha what is left unsaid) and I always find it cute to discover easter eggs like this. If I had a greater arsenal of tools perhaps I could explain why the last line sounds so incomplete and works perfectly with the funny lil comma. But I do not, so I can only hazard a guess that it has something to do with stress patterns, and appreciate the delight this small rebellion brought me. It’s quite clever.
Dawn Bombardment -Robert Graves
Guns from the sea open against us:
The smoke rocks bodily in the casemate
And a yell of doom goes up.
We count and bless each new, heavy concussion –
Captives awaiting rescue.
Visiting angel of the wild-fire hair
Who in dream reassured us nightly
Where we lay fettered,
Laugh at us, as we wake – our faces
So tense with hope the tears run down.
This is one of the poems that I do not want to deeply analyze and instead just sit back and appreciate how hard it hits me in the feels. Enjoy.
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