Victorian to Modern Poets

This week’s poems are all written in closed forms, unlike Whitman’s “wild American style” from last week. In this respect they adhere to the safe, standard style of end-rhymes we have seen so far. This does not mean that the poems lack any depth or power. Quite the contrary. In fact, in my humble opinion, we are starting to see in these poets a different direction, almost a precursor to the confessional mode. I especially noticed this in my favorite poem of the week, “Neutral Tones,” by Thomas Hardy. (Can I say in my own blog that I fell totally in love with Thomas Hardy, or rather his poems, this week?) This particular poem has a similar sound to Keats’ “This Living Hand” in that it expresses love -- directly, quietly, to the beloved. “Neutral Tones” addresses the deep personal loss of love and time, with the sweetest melancholy: “Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove//Over tedious riddles of years ago”…”Since then, keen lessons that love deceives//And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me//Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree//And a pond edged with grayish leaves.” This seems to me the “tone” used in later confessional poets to describe personal relationships. There are still outside forces at work: here, in 1898, God still plays a major role in two of the four stanzas, both related to the sun on the day described in the poem.

With an exception or two, I must admit that I personally didn’t see much indication of the “tumultuous time” frame in which these poems were written. Instead, most of these poems seemed rather personal to me. In addition to “Neutral Tones,” I felt that “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now” also lamented the passage of time: “Now, of my threescore years and ten//Twenty will not come again//And take from seventy springs a score//It only leaves me fifty more.” What a lovely sentiment, that the cherry tree is so beautiful that the poet is disheartened that he will only get to see it bloom another fifty times, each spring. That was a lump in the throat moment.

I did make the connection about the “tumultuous time” in at least a couple of poems. One of them was obvious and straightforward: Yeats’ “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” about a soldier killed in war. I also see the connection, if I’ve judged it correctly, with my second favorite poem of the week, “The Mill” by E.A. Robinson. Here, industrialization has set in, and a miller and his wife both feel the downfall of their livelihood and kill themselves in despair; he by hanging, and she by drowning.

All in all, very intimate and moving poems, like many we’ve read so far. I loved Robinson’s request in “George Crabbe:” keep the great poetic masters alive!