Literary Analysis and discussion: Nothing Gold Can Stay

I like this poem because it is humbling to those who don't see things in terms of eternity. In the eternity, nothing we do really matters but in the right here and now, cockyness runs rampant. Here are your "mighty works" if you don't believe me:

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Ozymandias 
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Mr. G:

Love this poem! Especially the last line -- "the lone and level sands stretch far away." So what is worth doing? Great works? Maintenance? Whatever makes you happy? If all is impermanence, I still wonder, what is worth doing?

By the way, this poem is often copied with "upon" instead of the original "on": "Look on my works ye mighty..."

Me:
 
You're right. Upon screws up the pentameter. I think I'll change it.

I think if all is impermanent, the stress of doing everything perfect is gone. Eternity makes each moment into something not so stressful.

Literary Analysis: Pondering Eliot

The poem, "The Hollow Men" speaks to me because of its intense analysis of all the emptyness in various pastures of reality.  The ending lines are truly some of the most powerful in literature altogether, in my opinion.  To claim that with all the noise of all these different walks of life, none of them make a loud enough noise to mean anything to eternity is truly powerful:
"This is the way the world ends:
Not with a bang but a whimper."
As if at the end of it all, there's naught but a whimper that speaks to the legacy of man.  Don't let me interpret for you, though.  Enjoy T.S. Eliot's, The Hollow Men, A penny for the Old Guy:



I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Literary Analysis: Roald Dhal Vs. William Allingham

In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dhal quotes "round the world and home again, that's the sailor's way!" in his poem/song: The Rowing Song.  I thought this sounded too classical for a Roald Dahl book so I looked into it and found this great little poem that gave me the heart of a pirate.  I thought I'd share.

HOMEWARD BOUND

Head the ship for England!
Shake out every sail!
Blithe leap the billows,
Merry sings the gale.
Captain, work the reckoning;
How many knots a day? -
Round the world and home again,
That's the sailor's way!

We've traded with the Yankees,
Brazilians and Chinese;
We've laughed with dusky beauties
In shade of tall palm-trees;
Across the line and Gulf-Stream -
Round by Table Bay -
Everywhere and home again,
That's the sailor's way!

Nightly stands the North Star
Higher on our bow;
Straight we run for England;
Our thoughts are in it now.
Jolly times with friends ashore,
When we've drawn our pay! -
All about and home again,
That's the sailor's way!

Tom will to his parents,
Jack will to his dear,
Joe to wife and children,
Bob to pipes and beer;
Dicky to the dancing-room,
To hear the fiddles play; -
Round the world and home again,
That's the sailor's way!

William Allingham [1824-1889]

The Rowing Song

Round the world and home again
That's the sailor's way
Faster faster, faster faster

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing

Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a–blowing

Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a–glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing

Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing

Roald Dhal
Charley and The Chocolate Factory

Motivational Speech

The beauty of a sunrise  on forever is a romantic notion to many people.  The sunrise over planet earth makes for the introduction to such legends as superman and the anthroplomorphosism of space its self.  It serves as a reminder that we are part of a bigger plan and that everybody takes part in that plan, no matter how small.
We are the voyagers, traversing personal thought, emotion, scholastic achievement, power, honor, a future and even the extent of our own capabilities.  The thing we so soon forget and are reminded of by, when it comes to this imagry, is that we are doing this not alone but as one of an ocean of others trying to do the same thing or at least earn the right to call their life water rather than a single molecule of H2O.
Sitting on our beaches or our starships or even out in the middle of the ocean, we look out on forever and can be humbled that we are one so small in the existence of life on earth.  When we come back to reality, however, we stand outside the water; we stand outside of space.  As people, we have the ability to percieve these feelings and experience them all in a different way.
That is why we are the ocean.  Not a single molecule of H2O or water but that great body made up of many of different parts despite the vast quantity of things that surround it.  Pain and death are inevitable but so is forever.  Our strength to know that anything that leaves here will indeed make an impact that will never be forgotten; most notably ourselves.
This is the reason why we should not look out onto the dawn or the dusk, but to the achievement of a new day and new structures to observe and feel.
Just like the ocean, the eternity of space, we are explorers and we are given ourselves.