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larryhammerFor Poetry Monday:
Aspects of the Pines, Paul Hamilton Hayne
Tall, somber, grim, against the morning sky
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,
Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully,
As if from realms of mystical despairs.
Tall, somber, grim, they stand with dusky gleams
Brightening to gold within the woodland’s core,
Beneath the gracious noontide’s tranquil beams,—
But the weird winds of morning sigh no more.
A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable,
Broods round and o’er them in the wind’s surcease,
And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell
Rests the mute rapture of deep hearted peace.
Last, sunset comes—the solemn joy and might
Borne from the West when cloudless day declines—
Low, flute-like breezes sweep the waves of light,
And, lifting dark green tresses of the pines,
Till every lock is luminous, gently float,
Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar,
To faint when twilight on her virginal throat
Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star.
I may have posted this one before—if so, no apologies, as I still like it despite trying to rhyme ineffable with dell. FWIW, Hayne (1830-1886) was an Antebellum* Poet best regarded in his time as a sonneteer and these times hardly at all—he is deservedly obscure, and I know more about him than I really need to thanks to having lived for a few years on a street named after him. (The next street over was Timrod, his slightly less, but still deservedly, obscure bff.)
* For readers outside the US: this word has the local meaning “from a Southeastern state in the generation before the American Civil War.” In Hayne’s case, South Carolina.
---L.
Subject quote from Mending Wall, Robert Frost.
Aspects of the Pines, Paul Hamilton Hayne
Tall, somber, grim, against the morning sky
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,
Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully,
As if from realms of mystical despairs.
Tall, somber, grim, they stand with dusky gleams
Brightening to gold within the woodland’s core,
Beneath the gracious noontide’s tranquil beams,—
But the weird winds of morning sigh no more.
A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable,
Broods round and o’er them in the wind’s surcease,
And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell
Rests the mute rapture of deep hearted peace.
Last, sunset comes—the solemn joy and might
Borne from the West when cloudless day declines—
Low, flute-like breezes sweep the waves of light,
And, lifting dark green tresses of the pines,
Till every lock is luminous, gently float,
Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar,
To faint when twilight on her virginal throat
Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star.
I may have posted this one before—if so, no apologies, as I still like it despite trying to rhyme ineffable with dell. FWIW, Hayne (1830-1886) was an Antebellum* Poet best regarded in his time as a sonneteer and these times hardly at all—he is deservedly obscure, and I know more about him than I really need to thanks to having lived for a few years on a street named after him. (The next street over was Timrod, his slightly less, but still deservedly, obscure bff.)
* For readers outside the US: this word has the local meaning “from a Southeastern state in the generation before the American Civil War.” In Hayne’s case, South Carolina.
---L.
Subject quote from Mending Wall, Robert Frost.
no subject
Date: 15 April 2024 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 April 2024 05:26 pm (UTC)The equivalent neighborhood in our city is also called Poets' Corner, though all the poets are American -- Longfellow, Holmes, and so on. Hayne and Timrod are at the very edge of that. (That the developers decided to honor those two, of all possibilities, has always bemused me.)