Sonnets 6: Wordsworth, Kipling & Rossetti.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland on the 7th of April 1770. He was the second child in a family of four boys & a girl. Dorothy, his sister was born a year & nine months later. Along with his wife she would become one of his most beloved companions. He lost both of his parents quite early in life, being only eight when his mother died & thirteen when his father passed away. After his mother's death he attended the grammar school at Hawkshead where he lodged with Anne Tyson. In 1787 he went up to St John's College, Cambridge. However, he disliked academia & in the year 1790 went on a walking tour of France, the Alps & Italy. In 1791 he returned to France to spend a year there. He became passionately interested in the ideals of the French revolution & the republic. When England declared war against France he was originally quite shocked & perturbed although he eventually became disillusioned with the French revolution & its ideology. He is probably most famous for the Lyrical Ballads (1798) which along with his fellow contributor, Samuel Taylor Coleridge is often cited as heralding the start of the Romantic movement. He abandoned the radical idealism & politics of his youth & was later mocked by the likes of Shelley & Byron as being simple & dull. Even Keats distrusted what he called Wordsworth's 'egotistical sublime'. However, Wordsworth has always been enormously popular & was championed by writers such as Matthew Arnold & John Stuart Mill who held him in high esteem & with great veneration. In 1843 he succeeded Southey as Poet Laureate.

Composed upon Westminster bridge, September 3, 1802

Sonnets III:

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison, into which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

According to Wordsworth in his note to Isabella Fenwick this series of seven sonnets was 'written on the roof of a coach, on my way to France'. He also remarked in the same note that he could repeat the sonnets of Milton by heart. He had loved them ever since Dorothy had read them to him many years before. He was particularly impressed with the 'style of harmony & the gravity, & republican austerity of these compositions.' This third sonnet in his series has an ABBA ABBA CDDC CD rhyme scheme with the volta fairly conventionally placed at the eighth line. This poem is notable, if for nothing else, for giving us an insight into Wordsworth's views on the 'sonnet's scanty plot of ground'.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay, India to an English family. His father was John Lockwood Kipling the author & illustrator of Beast & Man in India. In his time he was widely regarded as the unofficial poet laureate. He was the first English writer to receive the Nobel prize. Kipling was a prolific writer & is in many ways as controversial now as he was then. He has been both accused & praised for his poetry which can run the full gamut, according to many, from cynical realism to vulgar jingoism. His main achievement was to introduce a diction more realistic than his more aesthetic contemporaries, yet many believe he didn't explore the form nearly enough. Many of his poems are highly enjoyable though, he had a great gift for rhyme & scansion.

The Sons of Martha (extract):

The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.


It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.


They say to mountains "Be ye removèd." They say to the lesser floods "Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reprovèd -- they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit -- then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.


They finger Death at their gloves' end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.


This 'sonnet' is taken from a longer narrative poem of the same name. It is cited as evidence for a submerged sonnet that is hidden in a much longer work. I am highly sceptical about many of the claims made by people who claim to find submerged sonnets, but it is interesting to view this as one just for the fun of it.


Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-94) was the sister of D.G. & W.M. Rossetti. She shared many of her brother's intellectual & literary interests from a very early age. Unfortunately ill health (which later developed severely) ended her career as a governess. Her engagement to one of the original Pre-Raphaelite painters, James Collinson, ended in 1850 when he rejoined the Catholic Church. Her devout High Anglicanism, which bordered on Tractarianism, was a large contributing factor to this event. Her work ranges from fantasy to ballads, sonnets & religious poetry. In fact she wrote many religious sonnets in later life. She has often been compared to Emily Bronte for her sense of melancholy which could sometimes border on morbidity. She was a favourite of Queen Victoria & would have certainly been the first female Poet Laureate after the death of Tennyson. This would have set an important precedent. Unfortunately she developed a fatal cancer in 1891 with which she succumbed to three years later. Of the seven Poet's Laureate that have followed Alfred Lord Tennyson, none have been *women.

*Carol Anne Duffy, CBE, FRSL, succeeded Andrew Motion as poet laureate on the first of May 2009.

After Death:

The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
And could not hear him; but I heard him say:
'Poor child, poor child:' and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:
He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold.






Thinking of You:

For every time you occupy my mind
a rose has blossomed softly from my thought.
I'm here enclosed by scented petals, blind
to distance, time, and changes these have wrought
but thoughts are not enough, and love needs more.
Imaginary roses seem such poor
thin substitutes for such substantial need;
my plea, be real for me, and match my greed.

This Ottavo Rima or Sonnetto Respetto (little song of respect) by Mercedes Webb-Pullman is a form which originated in the thirteenth century & was often recited to musical accompaniment. It is a good possibility that it was one of the inchoate forms of the developing sonnet. The Ottavo was employed by Byron in his epic Don Juan. It was the Italian, Pulci, however who developed the form into a mock heroic burlesque. Byron even translated the first canto of Pulci's 'The Morgante Maggiore' in homage to the poet who had developed the form. The rhyme schemes could vary but this is typical in having ABABCCDD.



Arrival:

I long to meet my love,
my sweet & dearest Savior,
Who came to bring me life;
He lived & died in strife

I know that He is coming
to heal a planet dying
To call all to Him knowing,
that some will turn away

I’m waiting for that day when
His word will break forth burning
All the dross He purges,
the living will be learning

He, The Victor Creator rules
His beloved with Him live.

This poem by Kathleen Botka is primarily influenced by the devotional sonnets of Christina Rossetti. The rhyme scheme is unusual but the flow & rhythm are consistently harmonious with a superb use of assonance. Note how Kathleen waits until the final couplet to utilise the narrative device of the third person & initiate a clever volta.


Daisies:

I rest upon this hill to meditate
to clear my mind of earthly happenings
the sun and moon and stars I contemplate
and lose myself for hours imagining

that somehow I escape this atmosphere
and leave this mediocrity behind.
There's nothing left to spark my interest here
It strikes me as mundane and unrefined

but when an interruption ceased my muse
a solitary daisy caught my eye
that it had not been seen, there's no excuse
its simple beauty no one could deny.

While dreaming of a place light years away
I've missed the joy of living day to day.

This sonnet in the style of Emily Dickinson by the poet Laura Daniels does indeed capture much of the organic, almost Imagist simplicity, of Dickinson's work. The solitary daisy is a bit reminiscent of Wordsworth's daffodils, which made such an impression on him & his sister in the Cumbrian village of Grasmere on that sunny day in April 1802.



Thought Police:

Nature’s prime directive is to fit in
Blend, then the one picked-off may not be you.
Sacrifice those different again; again.
Save the many is society’s glue.

Easy to spot those who will not conform,
With their outrageous dress, their walk, their speech
Hunted prey, a chosen role they perform,
No need to pity that tormented screech.

Eyes with far-sight see too much that’s hidden.
Write for the congenital myopic.
Education limited, or best forbidden,
Questions arise; dissimulate the topic.

All will be well when all is forgotten,
Then together we shall all hit bottom.

This is by our very own 'Writing Wretch' a resident poet at All Poetry. It is an interesting study in paranoia & the persecution of those we feel that are different from ourselves. Starting with the idea of the herd instinct being a natural predilection for our species, the poet muses on the ultimate outcome of this innate part of our nature.


Link to Three Wordsworth Sonnets ~ http://allpoetry.com/column/2354515


Bibliography

The Poetry of Wordsworth, OUP 1978
The Oxford Companion to English Literature OUP
The Works of Kipling, Wordsworth Poetry Library
The Poetical Works of Byron, OUP
101 Sonnets from Shakespeare to Heaney, Dan Patterson (Ed)