“On the hems of earth and the skirts of air / Winds hurl me to and fro”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday, another McKay, okay? -- 'kay:


Subway Wind, Claude McKay

Far down, down through the city’s great gaunt gut
    The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;
In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut,
    Leaving the sick and heavy air behind.
And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door
    To give their summer jackets to the breeze;
Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar
    Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas;
Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift
    Through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep,
Waiting for windy waves the keels to lift
    Lightly among the islands of the deep;
Islands of lofty palm trees blooming white
    That led their perfume to the tropic sea,
Where fields lie idle in the dew-drenched night,
    And the Trades float above them fresh and free.

---L.

Subject quote from The Ballad of Dead Men's Bay, Algernon Swinburne.

Comments

[cmcmck]

I always have liked alliteration and internal alliteration which I blame on having studied Langland's Danelaw inflected Midlands Middle English as an undergrad.

In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne,
I shoop me in shroudes as I a shepe were,
In habite as an heremite unholy of werkes,
Wente wide in this world wondres to here.
Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hilles
Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.
I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste
Under a brood bank by a bourne syde;
And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres,
I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.

Thanne gan I meten a merveillous swevene -
That I was in a wildernesse, wiste I nevere where.


People who write like this have a lot to answer for in my own work!

[larryhammer]

And in Auden's ...

[sovay]

Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas

Aw.

[larryhammer]

And you can tell that's the image that sparked the whole thing.

[movingfinger]

In The Meaning of Liff, Douglas Adams defined "chicago" as the foul-smelling wind that precedes a subway train. (I paraphrase, can't find my copy)

[larryhammer]

I'm not sure whether that's a greater insult to subways or to the city ...