Poetic Muselings

A couple of months ago, I signed up for the first of four parts of an online course in mythic structure. We’re now partway through part two, and I find myself working on a long, narrative poem about a warrior who goes to Hell to seek revenge for his slain fellows.  I started this particular poem as a homework assignment, and in spite of my feeling that the poem was complete in itself, the comments by my fellow students (“what happens next?”) led me to continue it.  I don’t usually write horror stories — in fact, I’ve never written one — but the poem does have its grisly elements. Here’s the first stanza from Part II:

Jovan  strode down a narrow path
where walls gave off an eerie light
and crunch of bones beneath his feet
sent screams of souls to demon’s blight.

If I had to write about this in prose, I doubt I would have come up with anything close to this, but somehow writing in rhyme freed me.   The  poem is the longest I’ve written, and it’s far from finished.  It’s about 26 four-line stanzas so far.

I worked on a number of poems for part one of this course, including another where a soul goes down to hell.

Of all the story structure types I’ve studied, this one — the hero’s journey — feels the most natural. I read lots of Robin Hood, King Arthur, fairy tales, Greek and Roman mythology, and the like growing up, and apparently absorbed a lot about about the scaffolding without being aware of it.  All in all, a fascinating subject, and a rich source, for me, of poetic inspiration.

The Gates of Hell

He stood before the gates of hell
to bargain with a shade.
He drew a breath, then struck the bell
and drew his heavy blade.
The gate was formed from primal fire,
glowed with a steady flame.
But in that hell, his heart’s desire,
and on his head, the blame.
The shadow slipped between the glow
that formed the fiery gate.
Dar raised his sword to strike his foe.
The shadow murmured, “Wait.
“If you would see your love once more,
then listen now to me.
While men have entered hell before,
no man has broken free.”
“And yet I, too, must take a chance,
so shadow, stand aside.
The shadow bowed, and with a glance,
let hell’s gates open wide.
“I’m going now to meet my love.
Though I’ll remain in hell,
my story will be know above.”
Then did the death-bells knell.

I promised myself I would memorize Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride” by the time I reached my ninth birthday.

I’d already mastered the spelling of “antidisestablishmentarianism” — I had no clue of its meaning, but someone bet my third grade teacher that she couldn’t teach at least one of her students to spell it. My memory is that she asked me, the star speller in our class, if I’d like to give it a try.

I loved school, loved Miss Elliott, was an obsessive reader well beyond my grade level, and was excited to be picked. To this day, I can rattle off the letters correctly, as long as I do it quickly and don’t over-think.

When we read “Paul Revere’s Ride” in class, it was immediately my favorite because that famous ride happened on my birthday, “the eighteenth of April”. I mean, how cool is it to share my day with Paul Revere and his horse? I still remember several stanzas.

This past birthday occurred in the middle of a critical week in Boston. Broken-hearted, I watched, read and listened to more news reports than I’d done for several years. The courage and resilience Boston and the rest of the country showed touched me deeply.

I had planned to post a wacky “coming of age” poem, about what it means to turn sixty-five. (That’s 455 dog years, if you we’re wondering.) I’ll hold that for another time.

Instead, I decided to share Longfellow’s poem, written in 1860, at another critical point in our history. Yes, Longfellow took some poetic liberties in this work, but his message shines through. As you read it, see if the strong spirit that moved me nudges you a bit, too — especially the first and last few stanzas.

Michele

Paul Revere’s Ride

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said, “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,–
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,–
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,–
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,–
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.