»
Main Forums
»
Poetry Workshop
»
The Complaint of Lisa (for clinically insane Jim)
| Poetry Workshop |
|
The Complaint of Lisa (for clinically insane Jim) |
|
|
Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
OK Jim, here is your double sestina. Sorry about posting it in a new thread but wanted to be sure it wasn't missed by anyone. ---------------------------------------------------- The Complaint of Lisa By: A. C. Swinburne There is no woman living that draws breath So sad as I, though all things sadden her. There is not one upon life's weariest way Who is weary as I am weary of all but death. Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower All day with all his whole soul toward the sun; While in the sun's sight I make moan all day, And all night on my sleepless maiden bed Weep and call out on death, O Love, and thee, That thou or he would take me to the dead, And know not what thing evil I have done That life should lay such heavy hand on me. Alas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with me? What honour shalt thou have to quench my breath, Or what shall my heart broken profit thee? O Love, O great god Love, what have I done, That thou shouldst hunger so after my death? My heart is harmless as my life's first day: Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed: I am the least flower in thy flowery way, But till my time be come that I be dead Let me live out my flower-time in the sun Though my leaves shut before the sunflower. O Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunflower! Shall he the sun hath looked on look on me, That live down here in shade, out of the sun, Here living in the sorrow and shadow of death? Shall he that feeds his heart full of the day Care to give mine eyes light, or my lips breath? Because she loves him shall my lord love her Who is as a worm in my lord's kingly way? I shall not see him or know him alive or dead; But thou, I know thee, O Love, and pray to thee That in brief while my brief life-days be done, And the worm quickly make my marriage-bed. For underground there is no sleepless bed: But here since I beheld my sunflower These eyes have slept not, seeing all night and day His sunlike eyes, and face fronting the sun. Wherefore if anywhere be any death, I would fain find and fold him fast to me, That I may sleep with the world's eldest dead, With her that died seven centuries since, and her That went last night down the night-wandering way. For this is sleep indeed, when labour is done, Without love, without dreams, and without breath, And without thought, O name unnamed! of thee. Ah, but, forgetting all things, shall I thee? Wilt thou not be as now about my bed There underground as here before the sun? Shall not thy vision vex me alive and dead, Thy moving vision without form or breath? I read long since the bitter tale of her Who read the tale of Launcelot on a day, And died, and had no quiet after death, But was moved ever along a weary way, Lost with her love in the underworld; ah me, O my king, O my lordly sunflower, Would God to me too such a thing were done! But if such sweet and bitter things be done, Then, flying from life, I shall not fly from thee. For in that living world without a sun Thy vision will lay hold upon me dead, And meet and mock me, and mar my peace in death. Yet if being wroth God had such pity on her, Who was a sinner and foolish in her day, That even in hell they twain should breathe one breath, Why should he not in some wise pity me? So if I sleep not in my soft strait bed I may look up and see my sunflower As he the sun, in some divine strange way. O poor my heart, well knowest thou in what way This sore sweet evil unto us was done. For on a holy and a heavy day I was arisen out of my still small bed To see the knights tilt, and one said to me "The king," and seeing him, somewhat stopped my breath, And if the girl spake more, I heard not her, For only I saw what I shall see when dead, A kingly flower of knights, a sunflower, That shone against the sunlight like the sun, And like a fire, O heart, consuming thee, The fire of love that lights the pyre of death. Howbeit I shall not die an evil death Who have loved in such a sad and sinless way, That this my love, lord, was no shame to thee. So when mine eyes are shut against the sun, O my soul's sun, O the world's sunflower, Thou nor no man will quite despise me dead. And dying I pray with all my low last breath That thy whole life may be as was that day, That feast-day that made trothplight death and me, Giving the world light of thy great deeds done; And that fair face brightening thy bridal bed, That God be good as God hath been to her. That all things goodly and glad remain with her, All things that make glad life and goodly death; That as a bee sucks from a sunflower Honey, when summer draws delighted breath, Her soul may drink of thy soul in like way, And love make life a fruitful marriage-bed Where day may bring forth fruits of joy to day And night to night till days and nights be dead. And as she gives light of her love to thee, Give thou to her the old glory of days long done; And either give some heat of light to me, To warm me where I sleep without the sun. O sunflower made drunken with the sun, O knight whose lady's heart draws thine to her, Great king, glad lover, I have a word to thee. There is a weed lives out of the sun's way, Hid from the heat deep in the meadow's bed, That swoons and whitens at the wind's least breath, A flower star-shaped, that all a summer day Will gaze her soul out on the sunflower For very love till twilight finds her dead. But the great sunflower heeds not her poor death, Knows not when all her loving life is done; And so much knows my lord the king of me. Aye, all day long he has no eye for me; With golden eye following the golden sun From rose-coloured to purple-pillowed bed, From birthplace to the flame-lit place of death, From eastern end to western of his way. So mine eye follows thee, my sunflower, So the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee, The sick weak weed, not well alive or dead, Trod underfoot if any pass by her, Pale, without colour of summer or summer breath In the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done No work but love, and die before the day. But thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day, Be glad and great, O love whose love slays me. Thy fervent flower made fruitful from the sun Shall drop its golden seed in the world's way, That all men thereof nourished shall praise thee For grain and flower and fruit of works well done; Till thy shed seed, O shining sunflower, Bring forth such growth of the world's garden-bed As like the sun shall outlive age and death. And yet I would thine heart had heed of her Who loves thee alive; but not till she be dead. Come, Love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath. Song, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead; From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee, To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death Down the sun's way after the flying sun, For love of her that gave thee wings and breath, Ere day be done, to seek the sunflower. --------------------------------------------- To save you some work, here is the end-word scheme 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 12 - 1 - 9 - 11 - 4 - 7 - 2 - 8 - 3 - 10 - 6 - 5 5 - 12 - 6 - 4 - 7 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 10 - 9 - 11 - 8 8 - 5 - 7 - 6 - 4 - 12 - 10 - 2 - 3 - 11 - 1 - 9 9 - 8 - 6 - 10 - 1 - 2 - 7 - 4 - 3 - 12 - 5 - 11 11 - 9 - 6 - 10 - 4 - 2 - 7 - 1 - 12 - 8 - 5 - 3 3 - 11 - 7 - 8 - 12 - 1 - 2 - 10 - 5 - 6 - 9 - 4 4 - 3 - 9 - 6 - 5 - 10 - 1 - 7 - 12 - 11 - 8 - 2 2 - 4 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 8 - 7 - 10 - 9 - 11 - 12 - 6 6 - 2 - 9 - 3 - 8 - 1 - 7 - 5 - 10 - 4 - 11 - 12 12 - 6 - 8 - 4 - 3 - 5 - 9 - 10 - 2 - 1 - 11 - 7 7 - 12 - 6 - 3 - 9 - 11 - 5 - 8 - 4 - 2 - 10 - 1 12 - 10 8 - 9 7 - 4 3 - 6 2 - 1 11 - 5 You will notice that the 10th word never ends or begins a stanza and that the 12th does so twice. Have fun with this one. < !signature--> Pete [This message has been edited by Not A Poet (edited 01-04-2000).] |
||
| © Copyright 2000 Pete Rawlings - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
jbouder Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash |
Pete: Where did you find this? Geeze, I've been looking for this forever. Good to know I haven't been pursuing an untaimed ornithoid (a wild goose chase). I've gotten one up on Swinburne, I see (with my double sestina endword format ... not with actually writing one yet). Hehe. I'll probably use my endword format for the twelve ... er ... twelve-tets ... but I'll modify my sestet to match his. "They're coming to take me away, haha, they're coming to take me away, haha, they're coming to take me to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time ..."  < !signature-->Jim "If I rest, I rust." - Martin Luther [This message has been edited by jbouder (edited 01-04-2000).] |
||
|
hoot_owl_rn Member Patricius
since 1999-07-05
Posts 10750Glen Hope, PA USA |
Count me out....LOL |
||
|
Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
Well Jim, I thought I might be able to help you regain your senses (you do need help you know). So I just kept looking for the monster until I found it. It was either that or I felt compelled to write one just to show you how foolish such an endeavor really is. Now it appears that my plan has backfired. Rather than returning your sanity to you, it appears that I have challenged you or perhaps placed a dare before you instead. Maybe they should come to take you away before you really do hurt yourself.  Now, on a more serious note, the end-word rotation. Yes, I am surprised that Swinburne failed to use all 12 words at the end of stanzas. And it is true that yours does. The only problem I see with your scheme is the transition from stanza 6 to 7. I understand that one requirement of a sestina is that each end-word should be used on the last line of exactly one stanza but, It seems to me that another requirement is that the last word of each stanza should end the first line of the succeeding stanza. It seems this should apply also to the double sestina. Yours fails in this area as you end stanza 6 with word 1 and begin stanza 7 with word 7. Have you tried to correct this problem and found it impossible? If possible, I would much prefer to see you fix that one before proceeding. I haven't tried but it seems that it should be possible to do this.  Try to imagine what the above discussion might look or sound like to someone who just happened to casually read this thread. Is this about poetry or 3rd grade arithmetic or could it be number theory? What the heck are left-brainers doing trying to write poetry anyway? Don't they understand the futility of such frivolity? Ruth, count me with you. P.S. As I look at your end-word scheme again, it looks like you could just switch words 1 and 7 in the sixth stanza to correct the rotation problem. Then, of course, you would have to switch 7 and 1 in the last so each word still ends one stanza. Man, I must be going crazy with you now.  < !signature--> Pete [This message has been edited by Not A Poet (edited 01-05-2000).] |
||
|
jbouder Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash |
Pete: You realize that people are laughing at us as they read this correspondence. In fact, I'm laughing at us. But here goes. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 12 - 7 - 11 - 8 - 10 - 9 - 6 - 1 - 5 - 2 - 4 - 3 3 - 6 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 5 - 9 - 12 - 10 - 7 - 8 - 11 11 - 9 - 8 - 12 - 7 - 10 - 5 - 3 - 2 - 6 - 1 - 4 4 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 6 - 2 - 10 - 11 - 7 - 9 - 12 - 8 8 - 10 - 12 - 11 - 9 - 7 - 2 - 4 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 1 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 6 - 1 - 5 - 2 - 4 - 3 - 12 - 7 - 11 - 8 - 10 - 9 9 - 12 - 10 - 7 - 8 - 11 - 3 - 6 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 5 5 - 3 - 2 - 6 - 1 - 4 - 11 - 9 - 8 - 12 - 7 - 10 10 - 11 - 7 - 9 - 12 - 8 - 4 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 6 - 2 2 - 4 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 1 - 8 - 10 - 12 - 11 - 9 - 7 2 - 5 8 - 11 4 - 3 10 - 9 6 - 1 12 - 7 Mathmatically, I found it impossible (for me) to maintain the last word/first word succession throughout without doing as Swinburne did: repeating end words several times in lines. Any suggestions? The equation that I found does not work for the double sestina. It causes several repetitions of the end words. When comparing Swinburne's to mine, I see my one glitch compared to his (atleast) two. Perhaps Swinburne was a right brainer ... what do you think, Pete? P.S. I've roughed out my theme and have started to select my endwords. Have to take breaks from time to take my anti-psychotic medication, though. [This message has been edited by jbouder (edited 01-05-2000).] |
||
|
Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
Well Jim, you do understand that they are laughing justifiably, don't you? Anyway, as I said in the PS to my previous post, I think you can just switch words 1 and 7 in the 6th and 12th stanzas. Here is what it then looks like. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 12 - 7 - 11 - 8 - 10 - 9 - 6 - 1 - 5 - 2 - 4 - 3 3 - 6 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 5 - 9 - 12 - 10 - 7 - 8 - 11 11 - 9 - 8 - 12 - 7 - 10 - 5 - 3 - 2 - 6 - 1 - 4 4 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 6 - 2 - 10 - 11 - 7 - 9 - 12 - 8 8 - 10 - 12 - 11 - 9 - 1 - 2 - 4 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 7 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 6 - 1 - 5 - 2 - 4 - 3 - 12 - 7 - 11 - 8 - 10 - 9 9 - 12 - 10 - 7 - 8 - 11 - 3 - 6 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 5 5 - 3 - 2 - 6 - 1 - 4 - 11 - 9 - 8 - 12 - 7 - 10 10 - 11 - 7 - 9 - 12 - 8 - 4 - 5 - 1 - 3 - 6 - 2 2 - 4 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 7 - 8 - 10 - 12 - 11 - 9 - 1 2 - 5 8 - 11 4 - 3 10 - 9 6 - 1 12 - 7 The only change I made was 1 and 7 as I said. I am confident you will advise me if this doesn't work. Anyway, I hope we can get this resolved before you get too far with your poem. I would really hate for you to have to go back and rearrange lines later. What? You mean you found an equation for this thing? And no I don't think Swinburne was a right-brainer. I think those folks probably have better things to think about than getting caught up in this sordid affair. I assume you have noticed how few signers-on you have to-date. And btw, I am not one of them; I am just trying to help you get it right.  Or is it better described as a nasty mess? OK, now let me outta here ~dribbles on desk~~ < !signature--> Pete [This message has been edited by Not A Poet (edited 01-05-2000).] |
||
|
jbouder Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash |
Pete: You are a genius! As hard as I try I can find nothing wrong with your format. Between the two of us, I actually think we just invented something! HAH! Now where do we get a copyright on this? I'll try to find the site that had the equation and email you the link but I may not get to it today. Thanks for all of your help. Don't expect my double sestina soon, by the way. It is still in its preliminary stages. This is going to be a long term project. Nan: May I post it in this workshop even if we are doing something else? Just wondering. Jim "If I rest, I rust." - Martin Luther |
||
|
Poertree Senior Member
since 1999-11-05
Posts 1359UK |
Lol You're both stark raving mad .. you know that .. it must be genetically modified crops working their way through the food chain. Count me in .. on a timescale measured in months .Philip PS Jim I absolutely refuse to believe that you are anything other than a computer crazy millionaire surrounded by batteries of PA's ... |
||
|
jbouder Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash |
PHILIP!!! Missed you man! Stark raving mad? Getting there. Genetically modified crops? Probably. Millionaire? Not hardly. Jim "If I rest, I rust." - Martin Luther |
||
|
Nan
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-20
Posts 21191Cape Cod Massachusetts USA |
I personally think that Swinburne was burnt!! Are you asking if you can talk about other stuff in the corner of the classroom??? Um... sure - I'm finding it quite entertaining - and I'm even going to participate... in my spare time....Yikes!! When you guys decide on the real format, let me know..... I think this forum is really the 'stute..... |
||
|
jbouder Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash |
Nan: I think the best format is the Jim/Pete Double Sestina Format. Swinburne's just wasn't very well thought out (hehe).  Jim Jim "If I rest, I rust." - Martin Luther |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
