Well, i'm back from San Diego. i ate too much food and got too much sun, but it was beautiful. My dad served on a carrier years ago, and we took a tour of the new USS Midway museum, which was fascinating. Lots to see for fans of Naval aviation, especially Vietnam era stuff. i'll post some pictures later. During the tour, i found this painting on a bulkhead in the forecastle.

Here's a submarine poem by the 20th Century New Zealand poet Will Lawson.

The Submarine

The grey of OceanÂ’s denseness
     Surrounds her like a veil;
In silent deepsÂ’ immenseness
     No laughing seas give hail;
But round her, rudely riven,
     The sullen waters feel
Her stout hull, engine-driven,
     A thrilling thing of steel
That cleaves a pathway under
     The breakersÂ’ snarling lips—
That mocks the big gunsÂ’ thunder
     And scorns the battle-ships.

She goes by deeps and shallows
     Â’Neath blue Australian seas,
Where never sun enhaloes
     A wandering ocean breeze;
Yet, at her steersmanÂ’s willing,
     She lifts her stalk-like eye
To see the sunlight spilling
     Its gold on sea and sky;
And, mirrored in fair colour,
     The picture true is thrown
Where, in the sea-light duller,
     Her spinning engines drone.

When, with her bearings taken,
     She plunges deep again,
She is as one forsaken,
     Beyond the world of men.
Yet living men tend truly
     Her tanksÂ’ and air-valvesÂ’ flow,
And oil her engines duly,
     For it was ordered so—
Aye, thoÂ’ beyond the borders
     Of human worlds they be,
Their orders still are orders,
     And what avails the sea?

Â’Neath bright electrics glowing
     They reck not that outside,
In age-long course, is flowing
     The grey-green under-tide.
By periscope and needle
     And pressure gauge they steer;
For who with steel can wheedle
     As does the engineer,
In whose quick brain is hidden
     The secrets of the stars—
Who on the storms has ridden,
     And hurled the thunder-cars?

He hears the steady murmur
     Of engines in the gloom.
Could deck or floor be firmer
     Than his deep engine-room?
And he whose touch the rudders
     Respond to like a child,
Calm, when she turns and shudders,
     With silent mien and mild—
He makes new pathways under
     The breakersÂ’ snarling lips;
He mocks the big gunsÂ’ thunder
     And scorns the battle-ships.

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i doubt there's any visitor to this blog who needs to be reminded of the importance of this day in human history. So i don't have to tell you why i chose this poem. (It has nothing to do with Jackie Gleason.)

To The Moon

Wanderer! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so near
To human life's unsettled atmosphere;
Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake,
So might it seem, the cares of them that wake;
And, through the cottage-lattice softly peeping,
Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping;
What pleasure once encompassed those sweet names
Which yet in thy behalf the Poet claims,
An idolizing dreamer as of yore!--
I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore
Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend
That bid me hail thee as the SAILOR'S FRIEND;
So call thee for heaven's grace through thee made known
By confidence supplied and mercy shown,
When not a twinkling star or beacon's light
Abates the perils of a stormy night;
And for less obvious benefits, that find
Their way, with thy pure help, to heart and mind;
Both for the adventurer starting in life's prime;
And veteran ranging round from clime to clime,
Long-baffled hope's slow fever in his veins,
And wounds and weakness oft his labour's sole remains.

      The aspiring Mountains and the winding Streams,
Empress of Night! are gladdened by thy beams;
A look of thine the wilderness pervades,
And penetrates the forest's inmost shades;
Thou, chequering peaceably the minster's gloom,
Guid'st the pale Mourner to the lost one's tomb;
Canst reach the Prisoner--to his grated cell
Welcome, though silent and intangible!--
And lives there one, of all that come and go
On the great waters toiling to and fro,
One, who has watched thee at some quiet hour
Enthroned aloft in undisputed power,
Or crossed by vapoury streaks and clouds that move
Catching the lustre they in part reprove--
Nor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway
To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day,
And make the serious happier than the gay?

      Yes, lovely Moon! if thou so mildly bright
Dost rouse, yet surely in thy own despite,
To fiercer mood the phrenzy-stricken brain,
Let me a compensating faith maintain;
That there's a sensitive, a tender, part
Which thou canst touch in every human heart,
For healing and composure.--But, as least
And mightiest billows ever have confessed
Thy domination; as the whole vast Sea
Feels through her lowest depths thy sovereignty;
So shines that countenance with especial grace
On them who urge the keel her 'plains' to trace
Furrowing its way right onward. The most rude,
Cut off from home and country, may have stood--
Even till long gazing hath bedimmed his eye,
Or the mute rapture ended in a sigh--
Touched by accordance of thy placid cheer,
With some internal lights to memory dear,
Or fancies stealing forth to soothe the breast
Tired with its daily share of earth's unrest,--
Gentle awakenings, visitations meek;
A kindly influence whereof few will speak,
Though it can wet with tears the hardiest cheek.

      And when thy beauty in the shadowy cave
Is hidden, buried in its monthly grave;
Then, while the Sailor, 'mid an open sea
Swept by a favouring wind that leaves thought free,
Paces the deck--no star perhaps in sight,
And nothing save the moving ship's own light
To cheer the long dark hours of vacant night--
Oft with his musings does thy image blend,
In his mind's eye thy crescent horns ascend,
And thou art still, O Moon, that SAILOR'S FRIEND!

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War poetry this week.

In his travels, the knight errant Don Quixote de La Mancha met a man known as "the captive," who fought against the Turks. The captive was taken prisoner by a fierce pirate and made a slave oarman on a Turkish galley. The captive related the story of another slave who rowed next to him on the galley, a nobleman named Don Pedro de Aguilar, who had a gift for poetry. Here is one of his sonnets, about the bravery of the Spanish soldiers who in 1574 died defending the Goletta, a citadel near Tunis, the infamous home of the Barbary pirates.

O blissful souls, who from the mortal veil
freed and unconfined, flew from this low earth,
borne on the wings of brave and virtuous deeds
to the highest, holiest spheres of glorious heav'n,
     ablaze with fury and with righteous zeal,
and summoning all your honor and your strength,
you colored the ocean and the sandy ground
with your own blood, and with the enemy's;
     you lost your lives before you lost the valor
of your weary, battling arms; in death,
though you are vanquished, victory is yours.
     Your mortal, melancholy fall, between
the ramparts and the attacking horde, brings you
fame in this world, blessed glory in the next.

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In honor of Independence Day, here's Robert Frost's famous history lesson. This is a long poem, but i found that by following the iambic pentameter, it's easier to read. In general, that means that every other syllable is emphasized, starting with the second syllable of each line.

For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration

Gift outright of "The Gift Outright"

(With some preliminary history in rhyme)

Summoning artists to participate
In the august occasions of the state
Seems something artists ought to celebrate.
Today is for my cause a day of days.
And his be poetry's old-fashioned praise
Who was the first to think of such a thing.
This verse that in acknowledgement I bring
Goes back to the beginning of the end
Of what had been for centuries the trend;
A turning point in modern history.
Colonial had been the thing to be
As long as the great issue was to see
What country'd be the one to dominate
By character, by tongue, by native trait,
The new world Christopher Columbus found.
The French, the Spanish, and the Dutch were downed
And counted out. Heroic deeds were done.
Elizabeth the First and England won.
Now came on a new order of the ages
That in the Latin of our founding sages
(Is it not written on the dollar bill
We carry in our purse and pocket still?)
God nodded his approval of as good.
So much those heroes knew and understood,
I mean the great four, Washington,
John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison
So much they saw as consecrated seers
They must have seen ahead what not appears,
They would bring empires down about our ears
And by the example of our Declaration
Make everybody want to be a nation.
And this is no aristocratic joke
At the expense of negligible folk.
We see how seriously the races swarm
In their attempts at sovereignty and form.
They are our wards we think to some extent
For the time being and with their consent,
To teach them how Democracy is meant.
"New order of the ages" did they say?
If it looks none too orderly today,
'Tis a confusion it was ours to start
So in it have to take courageous part.
No one of honest feeling would approve
A ruler who pretended not to love
A turbulence he had the better of.
Everyone knows the glory of the twain
Who gave America the aeroplane
To ride the whirlwind and the hurricane.
Some poor fool has been saying in his heart
Glory is out of date in life and art.
Our venture in revolution and outlawry
Has justified itself in freedom's story
Right down to now in glory upon glory.
Come fresh from an election like the last,
The greatest vote a people ever cast,
So close yet sure to be abided by,
It is no miracle our mood is high.
Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs
Better than all the stalemate an's and ifs.
There was the book of profile tales declaring
For the emboldened politicians daring
To break with followers when in the wrong,
A healthy independence of the throng,
A democratic form of right devine
To rule first answerable to high design.
There is a call to life a little sterner,
And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.
Less criticism of the field and court
And more preoccupation with the sport.
It makes the prophet in us all presage
The glory of a next Augustan age
Of a power leading from its strength and pride,
Of young amibition eager to be tried,
Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.
A golden age of poetry and power
Of which this noonday's the beginning hour.

To me, the last few lines seem especially relevant to today's overly partisan atmosphere.

There is a call to life a little sterner,
And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.
Less criticism of the field and court
And more preoccupation with the sport.

The following lines are the best, and worth reading again slowly.

It makes the prophet in us all presage
The glory of a next Augustan age
Of a power leading from its strength and pride,
Of young amibition eager to be tried,
Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.

Thanks again to the scary-smart Matt for the source material.

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The Anchoress linked to this interesting NRO column by Mark Goldblatt. In it, he describes what happens when a writer reveals he supports Bush in a room full of poets.

But the most interesting part for me was Goldblatt's theory on why poets are so homogenously left wing. i find his reasoning persuasive:

How could a room full of published poets, wannabe poets, and poetry fans — in other words, people of average to slightly-below-average intelligence — turn out to be of a single mind on the subject of politics? Even in Manhattan, the mathematical odds against such a gathering would seem astronomical.

The answer, I suspect, has to do with groupthink and with the state of poetry in the United States. It is an absolute rule of aesthetics that as the formal constraints of a genre are cast aside, judgment within the genre becomes more and more subjective. Think of it this way: If I set out to write a Petrarchian sonnet and mess up the rhyme scheme, you can point out the error. But how can you tell if IÂ’ve screwed up free verse? As judgment becomes more and more subjective, recognition depends less and less on inspiration and technique. Brownnosing, rather than craft, becomes the poetÂ’s stock and trade. What is the common characteristic of the dozen most notable American poets today?

Their ability to work a room.

If youÂ’re a struggling poet, therefore, right-of-center politics is not an intellectual option; itÂ’s bad manners, a social faux pas. The propositions that George W. Bush is a miserable excuse for a president, that Republicans are evil money-grubbing bastards, that religious conservatives are actively seeking to establish a legislative theocracy . . . these function as conversational currency. If you cannot agree to them, you cannot shmooze; and if you cannot shmooze, you cannot gain entry into the brownnosing, pal-publishing, blurb-spewing universe of American poetry.

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