A Poet Pastiche

"A reader who knows no Latin and so cannot read Vergil has lost a great deal, but it is Tennyson's triumph that any such reader can remedy the loss by reading Tennyson, who richly sustains the comparison."

"...My mariners, 

Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me-

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads-you and I are old."

Dead too.

"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

Still reading Bloom.  And the Bible too, apparently.  He unnerved me at first; now he seems like a droopy-cheeked old man, well into his senectitude and a little tipsy on his favorite wines (Shakespeare, Keats, and a little Pope for dessert). I like him more, now.

His faint inebriation doesn't dull his laser-fine sensibilities however, and though sometimes inaccurate, he is rarely imprecise. High school chemistry anyone?

The time draws near the birth of Christ:

  The moon is hid; the night is still;

  The Christmas bells from hill to hill

Answer each other in the mist

....

This year I slept and woke with pain,

  I almost wished no more to wake,

  And that my hold on life would break

Before I heard those bells again:

...

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,

  Draw forth the cheerful day from night:

  O Father, touch the east, and light

The light that shone when Hope was born.

Christmas is interesting and how Tennyson treats it is interesting.  It's a time of year that people generally feel they should feel happy.  People are more fickle than that, and so it creates a rich setting for an artist who wants to juxtapose on it.  Beauty is deeper, more vibrantly colorful; Pain and sadness is drawn more starkly.  

There's a poem by Robert Southwell which was reworked into a song and re-arranged on Sting's new album "If on a Winter's Night..." which I think is worth reading.  Especially if Christmas isn't always the rosy stuff of Hallmark cards.

"Alas!" quoth He, 'but newly born

In fiery heats I fry,

Yet none approach to warm their hearts

Or feel my fire but I!

...

"For which, as now on fire I am

To work them to their good,

So will I melt into a bath,

To wash them in my blood."

With this He vanish'd out of sight

And swiftly shrunk away,

And straight I called unto mind

That it was Christmas Day.