by
Poet's Day

Contentment

Contentment
by
Poet's Day

This week’s poems are all related by the theme of contentment, although I might just as well have called it “Initials” as all three poets are known by their initials and surnames.

W.H. Davies’s poem, “Leisure” reminds us that we must take time to appreciate the world.

W.B. Yeats’s “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” conjures up a rustic island idyll in the heart of a city.

A.E. Housman’s “A Shropshire Lad, part XL” reflects on lost contentment.

Poem 58. Leisure

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

W.H. Davies (1871—1940)
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad day light,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I like to think of Davies writing this while stood at a farm gate in a little-used lane. He looks at the English countryside and shows us how much there is to see if we slow down and pay attention. He had good experience of this, since he spent the years 1893 to 1899 as a tramp in England and North America, only stopping when he was badly injured hopping a train in Canada on his way to the Klondike gold rush. His lower leg had to be amputated and after that, as he put it in his autobiography, “my adventures after this were not of my own making”. The book is named “The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp” and is apparently the source of the name for the British rock band (whose first greatest hits album was “The Autobiography of Supertramp”).

Links

Poem 59. The Lake Isle of Innisfree

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow

W.B. Yeats (1865—1939)
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

I like this poem for its simplicity: wishing for a simple life, Yeats has crafted a simple poem. Yeats imagines the sounds of this island retreat as much as the visual imagery, again showing us that in a secluded spot, all the senses come into play and we can appreciate the sound of a bird’s wings or water lapping at the shore; in the midst of a busy urban setting, these sounds return and stop the narrator in his or her tracks by their power, inspiring a return to the bucolic countryside.

Links

Poem 60. A Shropshire Lad, part XL

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain

A.E. Housman (1859—1936)
Into my heart an air that kills
      From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
      What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
      I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
      And cannot come again.

This has always seemed to me to be a wistful poem that muses on the scenes of past times, and the whole second stanza always makes me think of the times I spent with Nicola — the “happy highways where I went and cannot come again”.

I include it because although it is short, it is powerfully evocative of the memories of contentment and the sorrow one feels when such contentment is lost.

This poem is the 40th in the sequence of Housman’s cycle of 60 poems called “A Shropshire Lad” and provided the titles for Dennis Potter’s television play and Rosemary Sutcliff’s autobiography.

Links