Welcome to poetryreincarnations a channel dedicated to reincarnating great figures from poetry and literature via the wonders of computer animation.
I hope you may enjoy these glimpses at some of the long gone poets and Literary figures etc in the form of scratchy old movies as if they had been filmed by candle light.
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hyperbolelad@hotmail.com
Kind Regards
Jim Clark London UK
Here's my acoustic archive channel my archive of acoustic musicians of all types..
ru-vid.com
Lots of rare TV and radio programmes and videos of rare poetry records playing on my HMV 109 Wind up Gramophone here
ru-vid.com
Hear numerous famous poems audioboo.fm/greatpoets?filter=boos
"Man hands on misery to man" is a bit like "For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation." (Exodus 20.) It's a bit ironic from an avowed atheist.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, “If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,- One if by land, and two if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country-folk to be up and to arm.” Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war: A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon, like a prison-bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street Wanders and watches with eager ears, Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack door, The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers Marching down to their boats on the shore. Then he climbed to the tower of the church, Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade,- By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And the moonlight flowing over all. Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, In their night-encampment on the hill, Wrapped in silence so deep and still That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went Creeping along from tent to tent, And seeming to whisper, “All is well!” A moment only he feels the spell Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead; For suddenly all his thoughts are bent On a shadowy something far away, Where the river widens to meet the bay,- A line of black, that bends and floats On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride, On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse’s side, Now gazed on the landscape far and near, Then impetuous stamped the earth, And turned and tightened his saddle-girth; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry-tower of the old North Church, As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height, A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns! A hurry of hoofs in a village-street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders, that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. It was twelve by the village clock When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. He heard the crowing of the cock, And the barking of the farmer’s dog, And felt the damp of the river-fog, That rises when the sun goes down. It was one by the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they would look upon. It was two by the village clock, When he came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard the bleating of the flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning breeze Blowing over the meadows brown. And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, Pierced by a British musket-ball. You know the rest. In the books you have read, How the British Regulars fired and fled,- How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farmyard-wall, Chasing the red-coats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road, And only pausing to fire and load. So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm,- A cry of defiance, and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo forevermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
When I was a student in second grade attending the old brick Spencer School, built in 1912, a school that stood upon ground on 800 South and State Street in Orem, Utah, in the year, 1959, my teacher, a white-haired older woman named Mrs. Wynn, read to our class the Little Orphant Annie poem by James Whitcomb Riley. She sat in front of the class, the old green chalkboard behind her, a book in hand, her feet planted firmly on the creaky wooden floor that was so worn in a hundred places you'd have thought it was even older than its 47 years, maybe a hundred years. The spooky drawings we classmates had drawn were all hung up around the room and Halloween was nearly upon us as she began her recitation. So well did she recite the poem that I memorized some of it on the first hearing of the poem. We all sat absolutely quite and spell-bound by her reading of the old poem. I've never forgotten that recital and to this day, in my 70th year, I still think of that October's Halloween as the quintessential Halloween celebration thanks to Mrs. Wynn. Walking home, I passed through an orchard. The smells of fall, rotted apples on the ground, wet leaves, peaked my senses, as I looked about. I flushed a big rooster pheasant from tall grass and his noise startled me. Everything was wet from rain, and dark rain clouds above blocked the sun. Under the canopy of dark trees I could imagine the headless horseman riding down the dirt road that meandered through the trees of farmer old farmer who lived a block away. My book clutched tightly under my arms as my steps quickened, I next was startled by a black cat that unluckily for me crossed my path. How could it be, I wondered, that such a think could happen on this dark day? The line crossed my mind, "An' the Gobble-uns 'ill git you Ef you don't watch out!" When, I got home, my twin brother and I sat together and drew pictures of haunted houses and witches on broom sticks above them. Then, costumed we went trick or treating.
While Fanny Brawne was the love of Keats' life and the final version of "Bright Star" was certainly intended for her, according to some biographers he may have originally written the first version of this poem for Isabella Jones, an older woman Keats had a brief romantic relationship with before he met Fanny. Apparently, she was the one who suggested the topic for "The Eve of St. Agnes", one of Keats' most sensual poems. She was also among the first people to be informed of his death. Two other poems by Keats that may be about Isabella Jones are "Hush, Hush! Tread Softly!", which is about a lover and his "sweet Isabel" meeting at night in a sleeping household and sneaking out to avoid being heard by a "jealous old bald-pate"; and "You say you love; but with a voice".
Edgar Allan Poe never wrote "The Raven," he merely claimed it with a kind of 19th-century "identity theft." The poem's premiere was submitted anonymously to "American Review" under the pseudonym "---- Quarles" by the true author, Mathew Franklin Whittier, younger brother of poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Poe, a critic for the NY "Evening Mirror," finding the poem in an advance copy of "American Review," scooped Mathew in his own paper by two days. Mathew had shared a copy of "The Raven" with Poe in early 1842, so Poe had a handwritten copy in his possession. This enabled him to convince his editor that he had permission to scoop "American Review"--but he mysteriously left the "Mirror" shortly afterwards (suggesting that he may have been fired for lying about it). It is the height of absurdity that the editor of a newly-launched monthly literary magazine like the "Review," would ever have given a daily newspaper this permission. The real author was not in a position to reveal his identity because of his anti-slavery work and connection with the Underground Railroad, and hence could not publicly defend himself. My paper, "Evidence that Edgar Allan Poe Stole 'The Raven' from Mathew Franklin Whittier," can be downloaded from the following link, or it can be read by searching for the paper's title in Academia.edu. www.ial.goldthread.com/MFW_The_Raven.pdf
Something told the wild geese It was time to go. Though the fields lay golden Something whispered,-‘Snow.’ Leaves were green and stirring, Berries, luster-glossed, But beneath warm feathers Something cautioned,-‘Frost.’ All the sagging orchards Steamed with amber spice, But each wild breast stiffened At remembered ice. Something told the wild geese It was time to fly,- Summer sun was on their wings, Winter in their cry.
Fifty years ago, I was introduced to this poem, along with many others, by my mother. It's not profound, it's not original, but nothing else captures the sheer pleasure to be got from foreign place names as this does. Perhaps the pleasure was all the greater then in an era before gap years and long-haul flights, an era when you felt you would NEVER to go to Cotopaxi and Chimborazo; never even meet someone who had been there. Who knows?
The 'order' described here is not very well explained, but I believe it's the same order he describes more clearly in other poems: the apparent 'order' which exists in Nature, by virtue of the same things recurring endlessly (seasons, marriages, rebellions, funerals...). In this poem, he mentions 'shapes' which 'live on', so it seems to be same thing. Muir viewed this order as an illusion. In 'The Recurrence' he writes that while the eye sees 'the great nonstop heraldic show' of nature, the 'heart and the mind know' that nothing ever returns. In this poem, he focuses on the moral implications of our views on time. If time were circular, there would be 'nothing for praise or blame'. Every crime would be inevitable, making guilt meaningless. There would be no chance for redemption either- crimes would be, in a sense, eternal, making it impossible to move past them ('Comyn would rot until time's end'). Luckily, because of Christ, we know that time is not linear, allowing for guilt, but also salvation.
