Oh man, that gets me, pow, right in the left ventricle where it's going thud thud thud. I bet people think that poem is trite. But not me.
So now I know, the bonds of Earth are surly, and mortal coils are just regular, probably no attitude worth noting, no temperament, just heavy clinginess. But the author wrote a previous poem, says Wikipedia, font of all modern received wisdom, about somebody who died, Sonnet to Rupert Brooke.
I learned he ripped off part of the Flight poem and that takes off some of the shine and opens my mind to the possibility of other ripoffs conscious or otherwise, at least other influences. I myself am very easily influenced, very impressionable. See if you notice some similarities here.
- "We laid him in a cool and shadowed grove
- One evening in the dreamy scent of thyme
- Where leaves were green, and whispered high above —
- A grave as humble as it was sublime;
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
- There, dreaming in the fading deeps of light —
- The hands that thrilled to touch a woman's hair;
- Brown eyes, that loved the Day, and looked on Night,
- A soul that found at last its answered Prayer...
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!Beware the Jubjub bird, and shunThe frumious Bandersnatch!"
- There daylight, as a dust, slips through the trees.
- And drifting, gilds the fern around his grave —
- Where even now, perhaps, the evening breeze
He took his vorpal sword in hand:Long time the manxome foe he sought --So rested he by the Tumtum tree,And stood awhile in thought.
- Steals shyly past the tomb of him who gave
- New sight to blinded eyes; who sometimes wept —
- A short time dearly loved; and after, — slept."
And, as in uffish thought he stood,The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,And burbled as it came!
