Questioning
You, Andrew Marvell (Archibald MacLeish)
Posted 10-09-2008 at 02:43 PM by itSFMe
This American poet wrote to "speak to my own time / To no time after". Unfortunately, he died before my time (1892-1982) 
I do find most of his poems a nice read, but then again - I do like history.
When I read the one below I always forget that I'm just sitting in my chair and not on a ship on the ocean. Yeah, I know - one can travel in different ways but this is how I imagine it
Who cares about details like "there is no ocean near that land" 
.
You, Andrew Marvell
And here face down beneath the sun
And here upon earth's noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night:
To feel creep up the curving east
The earthy chill of dusk and slow
Upon those under lands the vast
And ever climbing shadow grow
And strange at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange
The flooding dark about their knees
The mountains over Persia change
And now at Kermanshah the gate
Dark empty and the withered grass
And through the twilight now the late
Few travelers in the westward pass
And Baghdad darken and the bridge
Across the silent river gone
And through Arabia the edge
Of evening widen and steal on
And deepen on Palmyra's street
The wheel rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
High through the clouds and overblown
And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls
And Spain go under and the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land
Nor now the long light on the sea:
And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift, how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on...
The poem is not as much about a journey as about the aproaching night - but the naming of those places makes it feel that way to me.
I'm not sure why the poem is called after another poet though 
I do find most of his poems a nice read, but then again - I do like history. When I read the one below I always forget that I'm just sitting in my chair and not on a ship on the ocean. Yeah, I know - one can travel in different ways but this is how I imagine it
Who cares about details like "there is no ocean near that land" . You, Andrew Marvell
And here face down beneath the sun
And here upon earth's noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night:
To feel creep up the curving east
The earthy chill of dusk and slow
Upon those under lands the vast
And ever climbing shadow grow
And strange at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange
The flooding dark about their knees
The mountains over Persia change
And now at Kermanshah the gate
Dark empty and the withered grass
And through the twilight now the late
Few travelers in the westward pass
And Baghdad darken and the bridge
Across the silent river gone
And through Arabia the edge
Of evening widen and steal on
And deepen on Palmyra's street
The wheel rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
High through the clouds and overblown
And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls
And Spain go under and the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land
Nor now the long light on the sea:
And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift, how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on...
The poem is not as much about a journey as about the aproaching night - but the naming of those places makes it feel that way to me.
I'm not sure why the poem is called after another poet though
Total Comments 4
Comments
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Look what you made me do!
You wrote:
"I'm not sure why the poem is called after another poet though"
Perhaps the answer is here (A quote from Wiki about Andrew Marvel): "Many poems were inspired by events of the time, public or personal"Posted 10-09-2008 at 04:24 PM by pearla59
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Hi SFM - Andrew Marvell was from my part of the world and you've inspired me to find out a bit more about him...and this Archibald McLeish person too
Interesting poem.Posted 10-09-2008 at 06:23 PM by sasquatch -
I'm fond of MacLeish's poem "Epistle to be Left in the Earth," thanks for getting me to check out Marvell.Posted 10-09-2008 at 07:21 PM by andrew_c - I believe that one reason why this poem is named after a 17th century writer is that it places the poem in context. the place names are from that time. Now that's just one reason-- there are some others too, but I'm just begining to get my head around this poem. I find this work very captivating.Posted 11-25-2008 at 03:04 PM by wayfairer
