(no subject)
...strength alone though of the Muses born
is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs,
And thorns of life; forgetting the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.
I wonder if this spurred Dickinson to write poems specifically about arboreal uptear and darkness and worms and shrouds and sepulchres.
As for this:
Where is thy misty pestilence to creep
Into the dwellings, through the door crannies
Of all mock lyrists, large self-worshippers
And careless Hectorers in proud bad verse?
Though I breathe death with them it will be life
To see them sprawl before me into graves.
A misty pestilence sure got Byron, as well as his kid and a couple of Shelley's; but for the second part, the curse might seem to have redounded--with the cursed even getting to miswrite Keats' epitaph.
Fall of Hyperion was published right when Dickinson started writing. New work by your favorite poet will get your close attention, and these passages fed the thoughts that became her tomb poem, I think. As did, perhaps, the "loading rifts with ore": with Shelley following the advice a year or so on. At any rate she'd appreciate the conceit.
is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs,
And thorns of life; forgetting the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.
I wonder if this spurred Dickinson to write poems specifically about arboreal uptear and darkness and worms and shrouds and sepulchres.
As for this:
Where is thy misty pestilence to creep
Into the dwellings, through the door crannies
Of all mock lyrists, large self-worshippers
And careless Hectorers in proud bad verse?
Though I breathe death with them it will be life
To see them sprawl before me into graves.
A misty pestilence sure got Byron, as well as his kid and a couple of Shelley's; but for the second part, the curse might seem to have redounded--with the cursed even getting to miswrite Keats' epitaph.
Fall of Hyperion was published right when Dickinson started writing. New work by your favorite poet will get your close attention, and these passages fed the thoughts that became her tomb poem, I think. As did, perhaps, the "loading rifts with ore": with Shelley following the advice a year or so on. At any rate she'd appreciate the conceit.