another poem/quote request -- nostalgia
July 15, 2023 7:37 AM Subscribe
Now that I'm well into middle age, I'm increasingly feeling the ghosts of my past. The beloved homes, people, and animals of my childhood. Half forgotten memories of playing in forests and attics and hay lofts. Any suggestions of poetry or quotes with such themes?
One Art, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master”, by Elizabeth Bishop.
posted by clew at 8:44 AM on July 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 8:44 AM on July 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
I love Thomas Hardy's The Self-Unseeing.
posted by FencingGal at 8:47 AM on July 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by FencingGal at 8:47 AM on July 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
It’s a poem by Sarah Teasdale, but listen to this haunting choral version by Eriks Esenvalds:
"Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten —
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild —
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?"
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:56 AM on July 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
"Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten —
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild —
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?"
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:56 AM on July 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem ‘What lips my lips have kissed and where, and why’
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
posted by hydrobatidae at 9:24 AM on July 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
posted by hydrobatidae at 9:24 AM on July 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
BORED
By Margaret Atwood
All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding the log
while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured, boards,
distances between things, or pounded
stakes into the ground for rows and rows
of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)
weeded. Or sat in the back
of the car, or sat still in boats,
sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel
he drove, steered, paddled. It
wasn't even boredom, it was looking,
looking hard and up close at the small
details. Myopia. The worn gunwales,
the intricate twill of the seat
cover. The acid crumbs of loam, the granular
pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans
of dry moss, the blackish and then the graying
bristles on the back of his neck.
Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes
I would. The boring rhythm of doing
things over and over, carrying
the wood, drying
the dishes. Such minutiae. It's what
the animals spend most of their time at,
ferrying the sand, grain by grain, from their tunnels,
shuffling the leaves in their burrows. He pointed
such things out, and I would look
at the whorled texture of his square finger, earth under
the nail. Why do I remember it as sunnier
all the time then, although it more often
rained, and more birdsong?
I could hardly wait to get
the hell out of there to
anywhere else. Perhaps though
boredom is happier. It is for dogs or
groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored.
Now I would know too much.
Now I would know.
posted by jeszac at 9:27 AM on July 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
By Margaret Atwood
All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding the log
while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured, boards,
distances between things, or pounded
stakes into the ground for rows and rows
of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)
weeded. Or sat in the back
of the car, or sat still in boats,
sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel
he drove, steered, paddled. It
wasn't even boredom, it was looking,
looking hard and up close at the small
details. Myopia. The worn gunwales,
the intricate twill of the seat
cover. The acid crumbs of loam, the granular
pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans
of dry moss, the blackish and then the graying
bristles on the back of his neck.
Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes
I would. The boring rhythm of doing
things over and over, carrying
the wood, drying
the dishes. Such minutiae. It's what
the animals spend most of their time at,
ferrying the sand, grain by grain, from their tunnels,
shuffling the leaves in their burrows. He pointed
such things out, and I would look
at the whorled texture of his square finger, earth under
the nail. Why do I remember it as sunnier
all the time then, although it more often
rained, and more birdsong?
I could hardly wait to get
the hell out of there to
anywhere else. Perhaps though
boredom is happier. It is for dogs or
groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored.
Now I would know too much.
Now I would know.
posted by jeszac at 9:27 AM on July 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
Thanks, Robert Frost
Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought…
posted by SyraCarol at 10:12 AM on July 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought…
posted by SyraCarol at 10:12 AM on July 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
Piano
DH Lawrence
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
Yeats?
Among School Children
Hood?
I Remember
Maybe some Dickinson, but a lot of it shades into grief rather than nostalgia.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:52 AM on July 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
DH Lawrence
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
Yeats?
Among School Children
Hood?
I Remember
Maybe some Dickinson, but a lot of it shades into grief rather than nostalgia.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:52 AM on July 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Here's another one from Thomas Hardy:
I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"
For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
posted by kingless at 5:39 PM on July 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"
For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
posted by kingless at 5:39 PM on July 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Blue Remembered Hills
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.
A.E. Housman
posted by Paul Slade at 12:55 AM on July 16, 2023
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.
A.E. Housman
posted by Paul Slade at 12:55 AM on July 16, 2023
I have a fondness for Wallace Stevens’ “A Postcard from the Volcano.” Maybe not quite what you are looking for, but it has the crushing weight of nostalgia and time.
Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;
And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;
And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt
At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion-house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky
Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion's look
And what we said of it became
A part of what it is ... Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,
Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,
A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:58 AM on July 16, 2023
Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;
And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;
And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt
At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion-house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky
Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion's look
And what we said of it became
A part of what it is ... Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,
Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,
A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:58 AM on July 16, 2023
A song, but poetic enough I hope, from the Go-Betweens-
There's a boundary rider
at the five mile fence
bloodwood, bones + steers
And the sky's so deep
you can't find your sleep
keeps you walking through these tears
So you reach for things
you're never satisfied
you're running down the years
And to know yourself
is to be yourself
keeps you walking through these tears
Some days you ride it hard
to stop them getting out
then comes the day you ride
to stop them getting in
There's a boundary rider
on the five mile fence
bloodwood, bones + steers
And to know yourself
is to be yourself
keeps you walking through these tears
posted by Gratishades at 11:49 AM on July 16, 2023
There's a boundary rider
at the five mile fence
bloodwood, bones + steers
And the sky's so deep
you can't find your sleep
keeps you walking through these tears
So you reach for things
you're never satisfied
you're running down the years
And to know yourself
is to be yourself
keeps you walking through these tears
Some days you ride it hard
to stop them getting out
then comes the day you ride
to stop them getting in
There's a boundary rider
on the five mile fence
bloodwood, bones + steers
And to know yourself
is to be yourself
keeps you walking through these tears
posted by Gratishades at 11:49 AM on July 16, 2023
Jorge Luis Borges poem Limits had a couple different versions, wondering about what things he had done for the last time without realizing it. It haunts me, the shortest version most of all:
Limits
There is a line in Verlaine I shall not recall again,
There is a nearby street forbidden to my step,
There is a mirror that has seen me for the last time,
There is a door I have shut until the end of the world.
Among the books in my library (I have them before me)
There are some I shall never reopen.
This summer I complete my fiftieth year:
Death reduces me incessantly.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:22 PM on July 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Limits
There is a line in Verlaine I shall not recall again,
There is a nearby street forbidden to my step,
There is a mirror that has seen me for the last time,
There is a door I have shut until the end of the world.
Among the books in my library (I have them before me)
There are some I shall never reopen.
This summer I complete my fiftieth year:
Death reduces me incessantly.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:22 PM on July 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
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a 2008 song from one of MeFi's Own, the excellent Steve Goldberg and the Arch Enemies.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:56 AM on July 15, 2023