love

Endimyion – opening lines – analysis

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Endimyion – opening lines

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways. 

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

John Keats (1795 – 1821)

Endimyion a very long poem of four books … rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter.

The opening lines suggest beauty is a distraction from the woes of the world. Finding beauty in nature. But not easy to do perhaps in the business of all that is happening around us. The lines also suggest a wish that the beauty of the natural world is given to us after death unfettered from all those worldly woes.

Beauty as distraction, … or perhaps better to be seen as a resistance?

Beauty in Endymion can feel like a distraction from suffering, especially given Keats’s own life: illness, financial precarity, political unrest, and looming death. Yet for Keats, beauty is rarely mere escapism. Rather, it functions as a counterforce to pain. For beauty does not erase “the inhuman dearth / Of noble natures” or “the gloomy days” — those woes are explicitly acknowledged. Beauty exists alongside suffering, not in ignorance of it. In that sense, beauty becomes an act of resistance: something that binds us to the earth even when the world is harsh.

So instead of distraction, we might think of beauty as temporary shelter — a pause that allows endurance.

On finding beauty …

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth…

Wreathing suggests effort, repetition, even ritual. Beauty must be made present, not passively received. It requires attention, imagination, and perhaps a willingness to step briefly outside worldly urgency.

And if beauty were only a longing for elsewhere, it might increase restlessness. But if beauty is seen as a comfort, it becomes grounding like the flowery band binding us to the earth by the use of the wreath analogy. Keeping us earth orientated rather than pulling us away from our situation.

Beauty does not save the world,
but it saves our willingness to remain in it.

Hoping beauty is evident in your life in some way when seen as a living aid exemplified in a flower.

Now looking at beauty after death and the philosophy of John Keats … the spiritual side to this poem …

An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

An endless fountain of immortal drink … suggests the creator of the world is continuing in love.

This isn’t a single gift given long ago, nor a distant act of creation now complete. A fountain pours continuously. If there is a creator implied here, it’s not a withdrawn clock-maker God, but one still actively giving — still leaning toward the world.

It is loving rather than judgmental. What flows from heaven is not law, command, or punishment, but drink — sustenance, pleasure, life. It’s intimate and generous. You don’t earn a drink; you receive it because you are thirsty.

Keats keeps the theology deliberately indirect. He doesn’t name God. He avoids doctrine. Instead, he gives us an image that feels halfway between Christian grace, classical nectar, and pure poetic imagination. That ambiguity allows the line to carry love without dogma — creation as an ongoing act of care rather than a finished decree. A spiritual force still in use in shaping our troubled world.

There is a longing beneath that for a place where beauty would no longer need defending, gathering, wreathing. Whether that place is art, memory, myth, or some imagined place beyond death, Keats leaves this unresolved.

It is up to us to consider the nature of heaven and any afterlife.

Edgar Allan Poe – Female connectivity

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Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809, the same year as Tennyson.  He was a poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as one of the central figures of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States and of early American literature. And he was the first American to rely entirely on his literary writing to make a living.

“Annabel Lee” was Edgar Allan Poe’s last poem and unpublished at the time of his death. He regarded it as his most significant poem and made pains to ensure that it would be published. It is thought that it is in connection with his first childhood love a cousin, Virginnia Eliza Clemn who he married when he was 26 and she 13. The marriage lasted eleven years ending when Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847.

Here is the poem …

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee; —
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
 
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my Annabel Lee —
With a love that the wingéd seraphs in Heaven
Coveted her and me.
 
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre,
In this kingdom by the sea.
 
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me —
Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
 
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we —
Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: —
 
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: —
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,
In her sepulcher there by the sea —
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849)

The angels in heaven were jealous of her, so she was quite an earth angel – metaphorically speaking.

The locked forever connection with beloved “Annabel Lee” suggests a spiritual afterlife association. So many people express deeper connectivity with a beloved partner after he or she dies. In regard to poetry Thomas Hardy comes to mind.

Edgar Allan Poe on Wikipedia … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe

You – a poetic elaboration

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I have been considering the one-word poem YOU. It is up to the reader or listener to meditate/associate/respond according to the receptive nature of that individual person at the time of reading or hearing. That is, if that person has time to contemplate such a poem in the busy 24 by 7 world of today.

Here are some positives in relation to such a poem to stimulate thought –

Subject and Object: The beloved is both the reason for the poem and its entire content. They are not just being addressed — they are the poem.

Economy of Expression: It says, “Nothing else matters. Only you.”

Devotion: It’s a surrender — the lover reduces the infinite complexity of love to a single, defining presence: you. If it is a lover that is being addressed by this word.

Mirror: It can also be a reflection — the beloved might see themselves in the poem, but also see the lover’s entire being poured into that word.

Timelessness: Unlike longer poems, it doesn’t age or tire; it remains whole and immediate

I have expanded the one-word poem into the following to give more poetic expression. But again, the subject and object of the poem depends on the reader/listener for interpretation.

                                           
YOU

I wrote a hundred lines.
Burned them.
Too many metaphors.
Too many ways to almost say it.
Then I wrote your name.
Once.
Paused.

The page stared back —
full.
Complete.
Crowded, even.
Everything empty
nothing
except

… and you read it
                  as if I’d hidden more,
                         but there is no more to say
                                               



What can I say … enjoy being you … whoever and wherever you are. And thanks for reading this Post. You are important; essential in keeping poetry alive.

.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines – Pablo Neruda

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Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973)

He was twenty when he wrote this poem. It was published in the year 1924. Clearly this is a poem about grief associated afer the breakup of a love affair very early in life. And early stages too in the grief process emphasised by the statement my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. To not have the physical intimacy of the relationship in the first days of the breakup is shattered at night time. The night the time the loss is magnified – to hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

The intense pain of not having physical connection is overwhelming and this dominates the poem. I like the single line stanzas that allow the reader to spend time deliberating on the sad state of affairs. The monologue and the repetition give emphasis to his sad emotional state.

But there appears to me a searching question on what is love. Apart from the physical aspects on knowing her body and the sexual union in lines such as –

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.

Maybe he is looking at other aspects of her that connect with deeper meaning. Attributes such as integrity, compassion, personal goals, philosophy … aspects that could form a common bond beyond the physical.

This is the probably a sad reflection on a first love. At least the first more meaningful love relationship for he authored the poem at the age of twenty, so hopefully over time he had more success. His ‘Memoirs’ detail his relationships with many women. Although he extolled the beauty of woman in his love poetry his treatment of women was sadly lacking. But of course the product of the time he lived. His love sonnets were very much a tribute to his third wife Matilde Urrudia.

Pablo Neruda – Love Sonnet XV11

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Love Sonnet XV11

I do not love you as if you were salt,-rose or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off: 
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, 
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries it itself the light of hidden flowers;  
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, 
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride:
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: when I does not exist, nor you,   
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,   
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda (1905 – 1963)
Translated by Stephen Tapscott

This is one of Pablo Neruda’s most famous love sonnets.

S1 … He captures a deep and profound form of love that transcends the surface-level comparisons typical of romantic poetry. Instead of likening love to common symbols of beauty and passion—roses, topaz, or fiery carnations— Neruda uses subtler, more introspective metaphors. He goes to the spiritual essence of a person – between the shadow and the soul.

If you like he finds commonality with his own internal spiritual understanding of self – his own philosophic adherence. The physical aspects are secondary, the spiritual is dominant

The love expressed is not grandiose or performative but intimate, and secretive. And as though words are not needed.

S2 … The imagery of the hidden, non-blooming plant suggests that love exists beneath the surface, silently growing and infusing the self with meaning. Neruda is modest in that he is only partially able to comprehend the love that is internal in his lover – lives darkly in his body, but nevertheless a deep bond.

S3 … I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where — emphasizes love as instinctive inherent characteristic. And a natural force that exists without needing justification or reason.

Neruda’s love is so profound that the boundaries between his lover dissolves. Leading to a union where they are inseparable— so close that your hand upon my chest is mine. But ownership of another person is not an appropriate interpretation.

The sonnet speaks of a love that is not possessive but one where two souls merge into one, becoming indistinguishable from one another. It beautifully explores the idea of love as a force that exists beyond the physical realm, delving into a shared existence. Stephen Tapscott highlights the fact that I and you are no more.

The underlying thought equates true love to the marriage of the mind evoking togetherness as intellectual and emotional compatibility between partners. This concept is famously captured in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, where Shakespeare speaks of love as something constant and unwavering, a union of minds rather than simply physical attraction or fleeting passion.

So true love between a couple can be seen as the marriage of two minds — a connection that transcends physicality and based on mutual respect, trust, and intellectual compatibility. In a broader sense, love also involves physical, as well as spiritual dimensions making it more than just a meeting of the minds.

Postscript – Mother and Jesus on Mother’s Day

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A postscript Post – For Mother’s Day, 12 May in Australia …

There are two important passages concerning Jesus and his close caring contact with his mother.

The Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11): This is where Jesus performs his first miracle, turning water into wine, at a wedding feast in Cana. Jesus’ mother Mary plays a significant role in this event, as she informs Jesus that the hosts have run out of wine. Although Jesus initially seems hesitant to intervene, Mary instructs the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do, prompting him to perform the miracle. It is the start of his public ministry at the bequest of Mary.

The Crucifixion (John 19:25-27): During the crucifixion of Jesus, we see Mary standing near the cross along with other women, witnessing her son’s suffering. Jesus, in his final moments, entrusts the care of his mother to the beloved disciple (traditionally identified as John), saying to Mary, “Woman, behold your son!” and to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” This passage highlights Jesus’ concern for his mother’s well-being.

In the time of Jesus the stereotype image of mother is one of subservience and background duties as an adjunct to male dominance. Today the mother image has changed but father image has become tainted by current domestic violence concerns. Those victims of such abuse might well hold negativity in the reference to our father and heaven in the Lord’s Prayer. Especially those outside the traditional church view of Father. And those that equate creation with love outside personification.

I attempted to find some balance by including a reference to mother in the following contemporary version below …

Our Father

Our Father, Mother of all life living in timeless beauty
        your name is sacred always to be praised and adored
you created our world and continue to transform
                                          the wonder of your creation

we thank you each day for having given us your son

forgive our wrong behaviour
as we forgive the wrongs of others

                       you know us intimately,  
                                                    guide our lives and protect us from harm

for you are all good, pure love, and perfect
            all honour, power, and glory are yours now and forever.

                                                                    
                                Richard Scutter (first published in a Yass Valley Writers anthology)

Machines – Michael Donaghy – Analysis

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Machines
Dearest, note how these two are alike;
This harpsichord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.
Michael Donaghy (1954 – 2004)
from ‘Dances Learned Last Night’

Pavane – a stately court dance
Ptolemy – An ancient Greek astronomer, who proposed a way of calculating the movements of the planets on the assumption that they, along with the sun and the stars, were embedded in clear spheres that revolved around the Earth.
Schwinn – Ignaz Schwinn’s passion for bicycles led him to produce some of the most iconic designs and significant mechanical innovations in cycling.
Dante – famous Italian poet who wrote ‘The Inferno’

The conceit is to compare the bicycle with the harpsicord. Two very unlike machines and I found it hard to identify the harpsicord as a machine, but both are human built to perform quite different functions. The poem explores the similarities. And at the forefront of the comparison both requite human skill for successful operation. And both require the use of hands and feet.

The key attribute is balance. And unlike the harpsichord if you lose balance on a bike, you can easily fall and injure yourself. When starting to use a bike you start to move and then balance. Perhaps there is a bit of a wobble at first. And, if successful, you continue to balance as you move. Balance in playing a musical instrument is another matter.

But by mentioning Ptolemy the entire world can be considered a machine. His mathematical ideas falsely equated the earth as the center with all other bodies revolving around in concentric circular motion. And the concept is that by the effortless gadgetry of love the machines can be used to create something quite beautiful like Dante’s journey to Heaven in his famous Inferno poem.

For the world to move and evolve with love as the blood force balance is perhaps the key. This is quite difficult of course for- ‘so much is chance, so much agility, desire, and feverish care’. And the world of today is out of balance as we try to correct for the injuries made by humans to the environment.

People love their machines. And on a personal note, as a keen cyclist, I have come to love a racing bike I acquired about eighteen months ago. But it has taken me about that time to really adjust to it including adapting a few accessories to make it exactly as I want it when riding. And after extensive service and new chain and different gear set it is just wonderful to glide along the many cycle paths in Canberra. And I am sure we all have a particular special item we adore. And if we extend the thought from this poem to the world and the life we lead then love is needed as we evolve. Quite a balancing act

Michael Donaghy on Wikipedia Michael Donaghy – Wikipedia

On love and domestic life – Vikram Seth

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Prandial Plaint

My love, I love your breasts, I love your nose.
I love your accent and I love your toes.
I am your slave. One word, and I obey.
But please don't slurp your morning brew that way.

Vikram Seth (1952 -

From The Times of India …

Vikram Seth is one if India’s most renowned writers. He’s known for his fiction and poetry and has been awarded with several honours in both Britain and India for his contirbution towards literature. He’s recieved a Padma Shri, a Sahitya Academy Award, a Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, an Order of the British Empire(Officer) and several other prizes for individual works.

His poetry is known for it’s witty wordplay, it’s rhythm and rhyme scheme. With simple words and thoughtful phrasing he evokes rich imagery, and there’s always a clever message clear towards the end.

And this is clearly evident in the above poem!

Prandial = during or in relation to dinner or lunch, such as a mealtime conversation
Plaint = complaint

What a wonderful humorous poem all about relationships and living together where the sublime and down to earth acceptance is such a contrast. That last line!

Vikram Seth on Wikipedia