This week’s choice is “Ode” by Arthur O’Shaughnessy which I have chosen to mark the sixth anniversary of Poet’s Day.
But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1844—1881)
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Poem 432. Ode
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; —
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample a kingdom down.
We, in the ages lying,
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming —
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.
They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man’s soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man’s heart.
And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day’s late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.
But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.
For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry —
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God’s future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.
Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song’s new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
This week marks the sixth anniversary of the beginning of Poet’s Day in 2020 and so I have chosen Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s ode to the makers of music and verse.
O’Shaughnessy was an Englishman of Irish descent and this is the poem for which he is most remembered though he wrote a number of others and made significant contributions to the study of reptiles through his work in the British Museum’s zoological department. His passion was for literature though, and it is sad that his early death robbed us of more verse showcasing the “haunting music all his own” as the anthologist Francis Palgrave called it.
The poem itself celebrates artists of all kinds who it describes as “the movers and shakers”—a phrase that originates in this poem but has since been subverted to apply to the rich and powerful, very few of whom, it seems, are moved to create or inspire others to do so.
O’Shaughnessy emphasises the artist as outsider, the person who wanders abroad in desolate places, destitute of worldly possessions but rich in invention. The “deathless ditties” of poets have inspired the building of great cities and empires but have also led to their undoing as each age brings new poets with new dreams that usurp the old ones: “For each age is a dream that is dying/Or one that is coming to birth.”
It is the poets (according to the poet) that breathe life into the dreams of each generation, motivating them to collaborate in realising those dreams however unlikely or impossible they may seem. “The soldier, the king and the peasant” work together and though individually they have little or no awareness of the bigger picture, the poet has seen it—“on one man’s soul it hath broken/A light that doth not depart”—and his vision, ably expressed, brings inspiration to others so that “his look, or a word he hath spoken/Wrought flame in another man’s heart”.
As each generation rises, they are inspired by their artists’ works though their elders scoff at it; as they age, they too will scorn the next generation’s art—O’Shaughnessy suggests that it is an eternal circle.
The poets themselves are rapt with their songs and dreams and absorbed in their imaginings of “glorious futures” and so they live “a little apart from ye”—emphasising that the dreamer and artist often lives quite a different life from mundane souls—“For we are afar with the dawning”—and sometimes brings unwelcome perspectives to our lives: “And already goes forth the warning/That ye of the past must die”.
So, he concludes, we should welcome new creators and artists who will “teach us your song’s new numbers,/And things that we dreamed not before” in spite of those former dreamers who now slumber and sing no more.
I like it because it is beautifully written—besides the “movers and shakers” quote, there are a lot of great images: the man with a dream going forth to conquer a crown; each age simultaneously “a dream that is dying/Or one that is coming to birth”; the words of the dreamer bringing inspiration: “flame in another man’s heart”. It celebrates the dreamers and artists who do so much to inspire us in a world of insipid mundanity and confrontation.
I have chosen the performance by Scottlynn Ernestine Ballard on the YouTube channel National Endowment for the Arts.
Thank you to all those who read these articles, I still enjoy writing them and I now have the new inspiration that comes with love and happiness. I look forward to exploring more poems and songs in the next year.