Alfred Sisley's 'Orchard in Spring'
If the persona in "This Is Just to Say" was somewhat emotionally restrained, we see an effusion of desire in this next poem.
"O Western Wind," a 16th century anonymous lyric, provides us a speaker who longs for spring and the intimate company of a beloved.
Early lyrics (derived from the Greek word for the lyre) were poems usually sung to musical accompaniment and exhibited intense emotions. Modern lyric poems are no longer sung or accompanied by music, but they still display the feelings and thoughts of poets. Lyric poems come in different forms: songs, hymns, chants, odes, elegies, sonnets, villanelles, rondeaus, rondels, and so many more. Most of the poems we come across nowadays are lyrics in the sense that they express the individual and personal emotions of the speaker or poet.
And what better example than this 16th century song. The "modern" version is closer to the original Tudor manuscript, and recreates for contemporary readers the intensity of the Renaissance speaker's ardor. But is the poem really saying what we think it says?
The quatrain (four-line stanza) mimics an individual's cry, uttered in two sentences: first, for spring to come and, second, for the company of a loved one. We got caught up in that second statement, particularly for its sensual connotations, and immediately assumed that the first statement is subordinate to the latter.
When we look closely, however, we realize that while the two sentences are structurally parallel they are not necessarily connected. The first line calls out to a natural force, "O Western wind"; and the third line implores a supernatural being, "Christ." The former wishes for rain to thaw winter's frost, and the latter for an embrace to soothe one's longing for a loved one. Read this way, the two sentences speak of a desire for different kinds of solace -- the relief from an external discomfort, and the alleviation of an internal desolation.
Which reading do you like?
Next: more lyric poems
"O Western Wind," a 16th century anonymous lyric, provides us a speaker who longs for spring and the intimate company of a beloved.
Early lyrics (derived from the Greek word for the lyre) were poems usually sung to musical accompaniment and exhibited intense emotions. Modern lyric poems are no longer sung or accompanied by music, but they still display the feelings and thoughts of poets. Lyric poems come in different forms: songs, hymns, chants, odes, elegies, sonnets, villanelles, rondeaus, rondels, and so many more. Most of the poems we come across nowadays are lyrics in the sense that they express the individual and personal emotions of the speaker or poet.
And what better example than this 16th century song. The "modern" version is closer to the original Tudor manuscript, and recreates for contemporary readers the intensity of the Renaissance speaker's ardor. But is the poem really saying what we think it says?
The quatrain (four-line stanza) mimics an individual's cry, uttered in two sentences: first, for spring to come and, second, for the company of a loved one. We got caught up in that second statement, particularly for its sensual connotations, and immediately assumed that the first statement is subordinate to the latter.
When we look closely, however, we realize that while the two sentences are structurally parallel they are not necessarily connected. The first line calls out to a natural force, "O Western wind"; and the third line implores a supernatural being, "Christ." The former wishes for rain to thaw winter's frost, and the latter for an embrace to soothe one's longing for a loved one. Read this way, the two sentences speak of a desire for different kinds of solace -- the relief from an external discomfort, and the alleviation of an internal desolation.
Which reading do you like?
Next: more lyric poems
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