Poems of R. P. Blackmur

Blackmur, Richard P.

ISBN 10: 0691013373 / ISBN 13: 9780691013374

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 1977

Beschreibung

Pages unmarked, save for PO's notes in pencil on first page only; perfectbound & clean. Poetry; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 81228

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: Poems of R. P. Blackmur
• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsjahr: 1977
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 0691013373
• ISBN-13: 9780691013374
• Einband: Paperback
• Zustand: Very Good
• Verkäuferkataloge:
  • Poetry

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe

As one of the first and most eloquent spokesmen for the New Criticism, R. P. Blackmur achieved a place of rare distinction in American letters. He preferred to think of himself as a poet, however, and this volume shows that his poetry was in its own right an enduring contribution to literature. Included here are The Second World (1942) and The Good European (1947), as well as From Jordan's Delight (1937), described by Allen Tate as "one of the most distinguished volumes of verse in the first half of the century."

Blackmur was a formalist and a master of traditional versification, a poet whose work did not show the influence of Pound and Eliot although he read them closely. His poetry impresses the reader with its strength, gravity, and musicality.

During his career, Blackmur lectured widely in the United States and abroad. He was the first man of letters to hold the Pitt Professorship of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University, and he was Professor of English at Princeton University, where he conceived the Christian Gauss Seminars in Criticism. He was a Fellow in American Letters at the Library of Congress, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Vice President of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

Originally published in 1978.

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Poems of R.P. Blackmur

By Richard Palmer Blackmur

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1977 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-01337-4

Contents

Introduction by Denis Donoghue, ix, 
FROM JORDAN'S DELIGHT, 1937, 
From Jordan's Delight, 3, 
Of Lucifer, 13, 
An Elegy for Five, 16, 
For Horace Hall, 19, 
Sea Island Miscellany, 21, 
Judas Priest, 29, 
Views of Boston Common and Near By, 31, 
Witness of Light, 33, 
October Frost, 34, 
Steriles Ritoumelles, 35, 
Petit Manan Point, 36, 
Three Songs at Equinox, 38, 
The Cough, 40, 
Phasellus Ille, 43, 
Scarabs for the Living, 44, 
Since There's No Help ..., 50, 
Simulacrum Deae, 51, 
Pone Metum ..., 52, 
River-Walk, 53, 
Dedications, 55, 
A Labyrinth of Being, 59, 
A Funeral for a Few Sticks, 65, 
THE SECOND WORLD, 1942, 
The Second World, 73, 
Missa Vocis, 74, 
Una Vita Nuova, 75, 
For Comfort and for Size, 76, 
Rats, Lice, and History, 77, 
Before Sentence Is Passed, 79, 
The Cellar Goes Down with a Step, 85, 
The Idea of Christian Society, 86, 
The Dead Ride Fast, 87, 
THE GOOD EUROPEAN, 1947, 
Twelve Scarabs for the Living: 1942, 91, 
Three Poems from a Text: Isaiah LXl:1-3, 95, 
Thirteen Scarabs for the Living: 1945, 99, 
The Good European: 1945, 
I. A Decent Christian Burial, 103, 
II. Phoenix at Loss, 106, 
III. Dinner for All, 107, 
IV. Coda: Respublica Christiana, 109, 
Sunt Lacrimae Rerum et Mentem Mortalia Tangunt, 110, 
Boy and Man: The Cracking Glass, 111, 
Miching Mallecho, 112, 
The Rape of Europa, 113, 
Ithyphallics, 114, 
The Communiques from Yalta, 115, 
PREVIOUSLY UNCOLLECTED POEMS, 
Autumn Sonata: To John Marshall, 119, 
A Testament on Faith, 124, 
Mr. Virtue and the Three Bears, 130, 
Alma Venus, 132, 
Last Things, 134, 
Effigy, 135, 
Three Poems, 
Water-Ruined, 137, 
Flower and Weed, 137, 
Of a Muchness, 138, 
Ides of March to April Fool's, 139, 
Night Piece, 143, 
Less Love Than Eachness, 144, 
Resurrection, 145, 
The Bull, 146, 
By Definition, 147, 
On Excited Knees, 148, 
Half-Tide Ledge, 149, 
All's the Foul Fiend's, 150, 
Nigger Jim, 151, 
And No Amends, 152, 
Threnos, 153, 
Acknowledgments, 154, 

CHAPTER 1

From Jordan's Delight

    Redwing

    What is that island, say you, stark and black —
    A Cythera in northern exile? sung
    Only by sailors on the darkward tack
    Or till the channel buoy give safety tongue?
      Here is no Eldorado on the wane:
      New Sirens draw us in, in silent seine.

    Men do not come to live here, but to spend
    Memory, time, and the long sense of flight,
    And find by spendthrift each one image friend
    That might outlast him and himself benight:
      In spending tides, spent winds, and unspent seas
      Find out the flowering desert dark, soul's ease.

    Redwing was driven so and so drawn in,
    A bearded fisher in his own annoy
    Hearing without all hallowed within,
    The hermit prison-crying in the boy,
      The broken promise cutting the inward grain,
      The heart throstling the sweet-tormented brain.

    Redwing was jilted forty years ago;
    What wilted waits for water still, what winced
    Still tenders when his fingers free and fro
    The mooring-buoy, and he, each fair tide since,
      Full-bearded, full awry, takes second sight
      Of exile in the black isle, Jordan's Delight.

    (Once I was with him, he within me yet,
    When while the ash of dawn was colding through
    And the ashen tiller stick was creaking wet
    He sang of Oh, the foggy, foggy dew! —
      Then felt, and lost, the long, low-running swell
      That buoyed his words up, voice that made them spell.)

    All broken ground and ledges to the east
    Awash and breaking, this island has a loom
    Never to be forgotten from the west
    And never to be left without sea-room.
      O Redwing, by your ruddied beard I swear
      Jordan shall wreck you yet, and wrecking spare.

    This stony garden crossed by souring cries —
    Gull bleat, hawk shriek, mouse and eagle screams —
    Retrieves, O Redwing, silence in your eyes:
    It is excruciation that redeems;
      Redeems, O Redwing, by your blood I swear,
      The still brain from anhungered sirens there.


    ii

    The Foggy Foggy Dew

    O Jordan young Jordan O sailoring friend,
    I'm sailing for ye that sailor no more;
    Though the moon's shut in and sun shut out
    And all the sea's a drif ting shore,
    Though tide-rips clout and put me about
    And the lather of cross-slops crab my oar,
    I'll sail her true and 'cordin' to;
    — And oh, the foggy foggy dew!

    Where were your eyes that day, young Jordan,
    For the rocking rise, the glimming land-loom?
    Where your ears, my gooding boy,
    For the smalling seas that shift the shingle?
    Where was your feel for a shoaling keel,
    The shiver and shawling, yawing of doom?
    Your grandfather knew, and so now you;
    — And oh, the foggy foggy dew!

    Your first grandfather first, young Jordan,
    Old he that in his shipwrecked thirst
    Sucked sea-fog off his aching lips
    And sucked but caking salt — and slaking
    Followed voices on the sea.
    As then came you, now I askew;
    — And oh, the foggy foggy dew!

    Hear now, young Jordan, salt that you are,
    Where was your dread and where now mine?
    The trough and the surge, the urge of the dead,
    These are our manna, salt for wine.
...